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H. B. Cotterill
Medieval Italy

p37 CHAPTER III
CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM

The period that will chiefly occupy us in the next two chapters extends from the official recognition of Christianity by Constantine — the so‑called 'Peace of the Church' — until the extinction of paganism in the Empire, which we may place about the end of the reign of Theodosius I (395) or the beginning of the fifth century; for paganism was by then practically extinct, although, as we have seen already, survivals were to be found even at Rome in the days of Alaric and of St. Augustine, and in obscurer resorts till much later, as at Cassino, where St. Benedict, it is said, about the year 529 overthrew a temple in which the country-folk, 'deluded and ill-disposed,' as Dante calls them, still sacrificed to the sun-god Apollo or some such 'demon.' A consecutive account of the historical facts of this period, from Constantine to Honorius, has been already given in the Outline, so that it will not here be necessary to restate them or to explain their sequence while attempting to describe briefly the wonderful and rapid growth of Christianity till its complete triumph over paganism.

Under Nero (54), Domitian (81), Decius (250), and other Emperors, even under Trajan and Marcus Aurelius himself, the Christians had suffered many and terrible persecutions. That instituted in 303 by Diocletian, at the instigation of the 'Caesar' Galerius, was the most terrible of all — especially in the East, where Galerius ruled; but even in Gaul and Britain great horrors were perpetrated, for the kindly Constantius Chlorus, the father of Constantine the Great, though he did what he could to alleviate the sufferings of the persecuted, p38was obliged to publish and carry out the bloody imperial edict.1

As for Diocletian, he seems to have been weak rather than cruel. It was apparently with great unwillingness that he at last gave way to the importunities of Galerius. His proclivities seem to have been towards a philosophic and simple mode of life, if we may judge from the fact that when (like Charles the Fifth) he voluntarily abdicated at the zenith of his power and retired to his Dalmatian villa and gardens near Salona,2 his one ambition seems to have been to grow prize vegetables. Urged by the ambitious Maximian to reassume the imperial purple and diadem, he is said to have answered, 'You wouldn't talk so if you had seen my splendid beans and cabbages.' And yet this is the man whose name — like that of Nero or Philip of Spain — is wont to awake within us scarce any feelings but those of horror.

The story of Constantine's relations with Christianity, as told by his contemporary, Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, the father of ecclesiastical history, and as retailed by later writers, is such a tissue of legend and truth that it is very difficult to disentangle the facts from the fictions. I shall relate both without too anxiously attempting to discriminate them.

First then a few words about his mother, Helena — St. Helen of England, as she is not infrequently called. She shares with St. Alban, according to some writers, the glory of being one of the native saints of the early British Church, before the coming of the pagan 'English,' and nearly three centuries before the coming of the younger St. Augustine. Some also assert that she converted her illustrious son, and that thus the glory of establishing Christianity in the Empire is primarily due to a British woman. But Eusebius, our chief authority, tells us that she was herself converted in later life by Constantine. Nor is her origin at all certain. Some say she was a native of Bithynia, in Asia Minor; others that she was the p39daughter of the somewhat legendary King Coel (the 'old King Cole' of ballads?) and was born in his city of Colchester; others that her father was a York innkeeper; and it is conjectured that while serving in the army of Maximian, in the years preceding the dramatic usurpation of Carausius in Britain, Constantius met Helena at Colchester or at York. But if this were so, by the year 272 Helena had followed her husband to the Eastern Empire; for it seems certain that Constantine was born in this year at Naissus, in Moesia — and not in Britain, as some have imagined.

Before Constantius returned (in 293) to Britain, invested with the powers of a 'Caesar,' Helena had been repudiated (p. 1). During the years of her humiliation she probably lived in the East, as her son Constantine did; but when he was named as successor by his father and proclaimed Emperor by the troops (305) instead of the son3 of her high-born rival Theodora, she must have regained prestige. About 326, soon after the foundation of New Rome (Constantinople), she was at Jerusalem, where, according to the legend, she discovered the Holy Sepulchre under a temple of Venus which had been founded by Hadrian; and she built (or induced Constantine to build) on the site of the demolished temple a church which perhaps in part still exists and is the earliest specimen4 of an important building erected for Christian worship, except the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem. Moreover, Helena is said to have discovered buried on Mount Calvary, the True Cross. All three crosses were found, it is said, and also the original superscription; but as this was lying detached it was necessary to discover by some other means which of the three p40crosses was that on which the Saviour suffered. A dying woman was therefore brought, and was restored to health by touching the true relic. Although the discovery of the Cross was accepted as a fact both by the Eastern and the Western Churches, there is no mention of it in the contemporary ecclesiastical chronicler, Eusebius, nor is it noticed in the journals of a Gaulish pilgrim who was at Jerusalem seven years after Helena's visit.

The conversion of Constantine himself is by ecclesiastical writers often attributed to a vision of the Cross5 which he beheld above the noonday sun — some say near Andernach, some near Verona, some elsewhere — when marching from the Rhineland to Rome in order to attack Maxentius. Eusebius asserts that Constantine assured him with a solemn oath that this vision had appeared to him and to his whole army, and related how on the following night Christ Himself appeared to him and, pointing to a cross, bade him inscribe it one the shields of his soldiers and use it as his ensign of war. Thus, it is said, originated the celebrated standard to which the puzzling name labarum was given. It consisted of a silken flag embroidered with the portrait of the Emperor and surmounted by a golden crown, or circlet, in which was enclosed the mystic monogram formed out of a cross and a kind of crook, which may represent the two initial letters of Christ's name (i.e. the Greek letters Χ and Ρ).

Some three years after the battle at the Red Rocks near Rome, in which Maxentius, attempting to fly over the Milvian Bridge, was drowned (unless perhaps his decapitated body was hurled thence into the river), Constantine erected a triumphal arch, still to be seen at Rome, on which a most inartistic carving represents the battle.6 On this arch there is p41also an inscription which in somewhat ambiguous language seems to attribute the victory to the inspiration of the Divine Being (Instinctu Divinitatis). Unless these words are a later insertion, they might seem to confirm the assertion that he attributed his victory to the favour of the God of the Christians, who had given him the Cross as his ensign and had assured him by a supernatural vision that in this sign he would conquer.7

But it is difficult to say whether Constantine at this time, or indeed at any time, sincerely accepted, or publicly proclaimed, the sole truth and efficacy of the Christian religion. That he did not admit the claims of Catholic orthodoxy is certain. The legend that he and his son Crispus were baptized by Bishop Silvester in the Lateran Baptistery before their departure in 323 for the campaign against Licinius and the capture of Constantinople — the scene of which baptism is depicted in one of the Vatican frescoes — is not credible; it doubtless first arose at the same time as the still more celebrated legend of Constantine's notorious Donation to Silvester, of which we shall hear when we reach the times of Charles the Great. Moreover, it seems indubitable that towards the end of his life he conspicuously favoured Arius himself and that he received the rite of baptism, when he was on his death-bed, from the hands of an Arian prelate, Eusebius of Nicomedia, who had been exiled when the Council of Nicaea condemned Arianism, but had been recalled and reinstated by the Emperor. Amid so many conflicting accounts it is impossible to feel any certainty. On the one hand we are told that Constantine showed great favour to his Christian subjects; that he abolished crucifixion because of his reverence for Christ; that shortly after his victory over Maxentius he issued the famous Edict of Milan, recognizing Christianity as the State religion;8 that he took a zealous part in doctrinal discussions, and p42even preached on the most sublime and abstruse subjects of theology;9 that he proclaimed to the world that neither his person nor his image should ever again be seen within an idolatrous temple; that he issued medals, pictures, and coins (some of which exist) which represented him bearing the Christian ensign and exhibiting a devout and suppliant posture before symbols of the Christian religion; that he insulted the many pagan members of the Roman Senate by refusing to take part in a procession in honour of Jupiter Capitolinus; that he summoned the Council which defined our faith; that, lastly, his statue erected in Rome represented him holding a cross and bore an inscription that attributed his victories to its influence.

On the other hand it is asserted that, probably till a late period in his life, he was a devout worshipper of the sun-god — of Apollo, or of Mithras;10 that on coins he represented himself with these heathen deities; that he proclaimed the apotheosis of his father Constantius, thus adding him to the conclave of the Olympian divinities; that he legalized divination by pagan augurs; that he introduced pagan elements into the new religious system, identifying the Lord's Day with what he calls in his Edict the 'ancient and venerable day of the Sun,' and fixing for Western (perhaps only Roman) Christianity the festival of Christ's birth at the season of the new birth of the sun, just after the winter solstice.11 Lastly, a very curious p43proof of his strangely impartial zeal, or indifference, may be adduced: on a lofty column (a part of which still exists at Constantinople under the name of the Burnt Pillar) was set a great bronze statue, some say the work of Pheidias himself, brought from Athens. This statue, which represented Helios with a radiate crown (such as that which on coins is given to the colossal sun-god of Rhodes), Constantine adopted as a portrait of himself in the double character of the sun-god and of Christ, substituting in the place of the original spike solar rays perhaps the nails of the Cross.12

We may perhaps regard such acts as due to policy, or tolerance, or a curious combination of zeal for the external forms of both paganism and Christianity, but it is difficult to believe that Constantine was actuated by any of the nobler teachings of either religion. Indeed, we cannot but be shocked at the cold-blooded inhumanity of the man who, amidst all his religious professions, after murdering his political rival (Licinius) and his family, caused his own son and his own wife13 to be executed, and that, too, on charges which seem to have been unfounded.

In the year 325, which intervened between these two bloody acts of Constantine, he presided at the great Council which he had summoned to meet at Nice (Nicaea, in Bithynia) to determine the momentous questions that had arisen between the followers of Arius, a priest of Alexandria, and those who, led by Athanasius, later Archbishop of Alexandria, claimed under the name of Catholics to represent the one universal Christian Church.

Constantine accepted and signed the decree of the Nicene p44Council — the condemnation of Arianism. But this heresy prevailed for yet many years in Constantinople and most of the Eastern Empire, being adopted even by the Synod of Jerusalem, the very home of Christianity, as well as by the Goths and Vandals in the West and in Africa; and, as we have already seen, Constantine himself ere long relapsed from his temporary adhesion to Catholicism and was finally baptized by an Arian bishop. To discuss the question which so inflamed the Arians and the Catholics, and which caused for five centuries (until the coming of the Franks) such bitter and miserable strife and schism in the Church, lies beyond the range of this volume. All know that it consisted in different views of the nature of Christ, in regard to his consubstantial identity with the First Person of the Trinity and His existence as the Logos from all eternity, and that the Athanasian Creed contains a full, if not an entirely intelligible, statement of the Catholic, as contrasted to the Arian, view. Moreover, most know that there was also a moderate party of semi-Arians, who, while denying the homo‑ousia (identical essence) of the Son and the Father, admitted their homoi‑ousia (similar essence) — the distinction between which terms we may leave to theologians, merely citing the very true remark of Gibbon that 'sounds and characters which approach the nearest to each other frequently represent the most opposite ideas.' Perhaps I may add that, although Gibbon seems himself to be entirely unconscious of the importance of the question at issue when he tells us that 'the profane of every age have derided the furious contests which the difference of a single diphthong excited among the Homo-ousians and the Homoi-ousians,' nevertheless I think most of us must agree with him when he notes that as soon as the Christians found themselves secure from external persecution14 they began to persecute each other, 'being more solicitous to explore the nature than to practise the laws of their Founder.'

The Alexandrian priest whose teachings in the space of p45about six years (319‑25) had been so widely accepted by minds incapable of grasping the doctrine of the Three in One — the same kind of minds as those which later, in the great iconoclastic controversy, could not comprehend the subtle distinction between the cult of images and idolatry — was, in consequence of the Nicene verdict, excommunicated and exiled, together with many Arian prelates; and all Arian writings were condemned to the flames. But, as we have seen, both Arius and his followers, such as Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia, were soon recalled, and during the last years of Constantine's reign he seems to have been entertained with distinct favour at the imperial court. In 336, the last year of Constantine's reign, orders were given for the public admission of Arius to the Eucharist in the Cathedral of Constantinople, but on the day fixed for the ceremony he suddenly expired, in consequence, it was said, of intestinal rupture — an occurrence which reminded his adversaries of the fate of Judas, but which perhaps was due to poison.

Athanasius survived his great rival thirty-seven years. He lived to see four Emperors succeed Constantine on the Eastern throne. Four times he was driven from Alexandria by his religious adversaries. He was deposed by Constantius, and, after restoration by Constans, was again deposed by Julian and restored by his great patron and admirer Jovian,15 and once more perhaps was exiled by Valens. But he survived all these dangers — aided once, if not twice, it is said, by miraculous disappearance and supernatural transportation into the deserts of the Thebaïs when on the point of being captured. At the age of eighty he died in peace at Alexandria, the patriarchal throne of which city he had occupied, interruptedly, for forty-six years.

These quarrels between Trinitarians and Arians may seem to have little or no connexion with Italy, but we shall see ere long how they led directly to that conflict between the civil and the ecclesiastical powers,16 between Emperors and Popes, p46which plays so important a part in Italian history; and before dismissing the subject it will be better to say how in the Western Empire the schism was finally healed.

We have already seen that the Goths and Vandals and other barbarians were primarily converted by Arian missionaries. The great kingdoms of the Visigoths in Gaul and Spain, of the Vandal Gaiseric in Africa, and of the Ostrogoth Theoderic in Italy were all, so to speak, hotbeds of Arian heresy17 until the extinction (534 and 553) of the two latter supremacies. Some thirty years later the royal heir of the Visigoth throne in Spain renounces Arianism and rebels against his father, and is executed. (He was afterwards canonized as St. Hermenegild.) His brother succeeds to the throne and induces the whole nation to embrace Catholicism. Then, about 603, by the influence of Queen Theodelinda, herself influenced by Pope Gregory the Great, the Lombards, hitherto Arian, become orthodox Catholics. Meanwhile the Visigoths and other inhabitants of Gaul have been converted to the Trinitarian creed by the Franks, and some time before the descent of Pipin and Charles the Great into Italy Arianism is eradicated.

But, having turned aside to note the end of this fratricidal conflict — the most momentous of the many18 which disturbed p47the peace and imperilled the existence of the Church — let us now return to our theme, the fight against the common foe, paganism, the final overthrow of which was effected long before the total disappearance of the Arian heresy.19

And first a few words about a form of paganism that proved perhaps a more dangerous, certainly a more subtle, adversary than the gross superstitions of the vulgar or the seductive magnificence of the heathen ritual.

Some of the abstruser doctrines of Athanasian Christianity, such as those concerning the Trinity and the Logos, have what appears to be a curious affinity to doctrines of certain ancient Greek philosophers — Pythagoras and Plato, for instance — whether because similar forms of thought are wont to spring from the deeper instincts and convictions of human nature, or because Christian theologians adopted forms which gave striking expression to their conceptions of the Godhead. Alexandria, the city of Athanasius and of Arius, was the home of what is called Neoplatonism. A century before their day Plotinus founded this system of thought, which on a groundwork of Platonic and Pythagorean principles was built up by him and his celebrated disciple Porphyry into a philosophical theology hostile to that of the Church. By these teachers and others of the same school Neoplatonism was imported into Rome and Athens, where it quickly took firm root and proved a serious danger to Christianity. Theodosius publicly burnt Porphyry's notorious treatise against the Christian religion; but the noxious growth still survived until, in 529, Justinian eradicated it by abolishing the schools of Greek philosophy. Neoplatonism, as taught by Plotinus, borrowed, but grievously misinterpreted,20 the imaginative description of the human p48body as the prison-house of the soul which is given by Plato in the Phaedo. The contempt and disgust that these false Platonists felt for what St. Francis so affectionately called 'brother ass' doubtless tended to produce, under the influence of Oriental excitability, the insanities of Egyptian and Asiatic asceticism — a result probably far more pernicious than any caused by the bitterest hostility of those who, like Julian the Apostate, openly assailed Christianity, or even of those later Neoplatonists who proclaimed a rival Gospel, bringing forward Pythagoras himself as Antichrist.

It has already been briefly told (p. 5) how Julian came to the throne. As his short reign of about eighteen months is conspicuous for his attempt to re‑establish paganism, I shall give some space to its consideration, omitting the much longer reign of the weak, deceitful, and inhuman Constantius as of little consequence in regard to our present subject, except so far as he follows his father's example in matters ecclesiastical, declares for Arianism, persecutes Athanasius at Alexandria, and elects an antipope at Rome, thus causing one of the first of those Roman riots that become of such frequent occurrence.

It will be remembered that Julian was imprisoned and then exiled to Athens by his step-cousin, Constantius. Here he spent six months, studying philosophy, doubtless under Neoplatonic teachers, and indulging his enthusiasm for the art and literature of ancient Greece.21 Although as early as 351, when a lad at Ephesus, he had secretly received initiation into the mysteries of the ancient Chthonian or Orphic religion, it was probably at Athens that Julian, then about twenty-five years of age, first definitely laid aside his profession of Christianity. In this he had been educated by Eusebius, that notorious Arian bishop whom we have already met at the bedside of the dying Constantine. Eusebius inspired his p49youthful catechumen with so much zeal that, it is said, he was accustomed to read the lessons in the Cathedral of Nicomedia.

Dramatic events led to his accession. After his recall to Milan, his marriage with the sister of Constantius, and his appointment as Caesar to the prefecture of Gaul and Britain — events which he himself humorously relates, describing his embarrassment at the sudden metamorphosis22 — he develops great vigour and genius as a commander. He routs the Alemanni near Strasburg and sends their king to Constantius. He subjugates the Franks on the Lower Rhine, and then, crossing the river by Mainz, devastates the barbarian lands, rivalling the fame of Marius and Caesar. He rebuilds seven cities between Mainz and the North Sea, and takes up residence at Paris, his 'dear Lutetia,' as he calls it, then a stronghold on the Seine island, connected by wooden bridges with the Campus Martius, the palace, the theatre, and the baths (now the Musée de Cluny) to the south of the river — the 'Quartier Latin' of to‑day.

Suddenly, as a bolt from the blue, arrives an order from Constantius (who is dominated by his court officials — mostly eunuchs) that the bulk of the Gallic legions are to march at once — to Persia! The troops forthwith besiege their general in his palatium with tumultuous shouts of 'Julianus Augustus,' and finally raise him on a shield and proclaim him Emperor. He professes great distress; but the fatal word has been uttered and the soldiers are inexorable. He therefore sends word to Constantius, now at Antioch, humbly begging for confirmation of the title. But Constantius furiously demands instant resignation. Then Julian issues the famous proclamation in which he commends his fortune to 'the immortal gods,' thus breaking at once his allegiance to the Emperor and to Christianity, and, collecting a large army at Basel,23 sends forces by different routes into Italy, while he himself with 3000 men p50plunges through the heart of the Marcian (Black) Forest, reaches the Danube, and in eleven days, on a flotilla that he had seized, arrives at Sirmium and enters Illyricum.

Constantius marches forth from Antioch, vowing to come over and 'hunt' the usurper, ut venaticiam praedam; but at Tarsus he dies of fever, and Julian enters Constantinople, where the imperial army declares in his favour, though the eunuchs had set up a rival candidate. He at once gets to work to rescue the court, 'as from the jaws of a many-headed Hydra' (to use his own expression), exterminating multitudinous satellites, spies, informers, eunuchs, and other ministers of luxury and vice. During the few months of his sojourn in the capital he displays the greatest zeal for the revival of the old religion, and, while professing a philosophic tolerance and at times conferring favours on other creeds, he is distinctly hostile24 to the exclusive claims of Christianity and especially severe against Athanasius as the leader of what he deems the most exclusive and intolerant of all sects. He commands the rebuilding and reopening of all heathen temples, or their restoration from the service of Christ to that of the Olympian deities; he recalls all the banished Arian prelates; he abolishes the Christian labarum and the Cross; he re‑establishes the colleges of augurs and flamens, and as Supreme Pontifex presides at pagan ceremonies; he spends enormous sums on hecatombs offered to the heathen gods, but at the same time he writes an epistle to the Jewish people assuring them that he reverences their 'Great Deity' and will protect them against the 'Galilaeans' who have forsaken the one true God; he even undertakes to rebuild the Temple on Mount Moriah, intending to outrival Solomon himself not only (as Justinian afterwards claimed to have done when he had finished S. Sofia) in the magnificence of the edifice, but also in the number of dedicatory victims — which in Solomon's case amounted to 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep! But it is said that, when excavations were being made for the purpose of laying the

p51new foundations of the Temple a violent explosion and earthquake25 caused such alarm that the work was abandoned.

How far Julian was supported by the genuine paganism or the temporizing apostasy of his subjects it is difficult to learn, for it is as perilous to trust the adulatory records of his friend and adorer, Libanius, the Greek rhetorician and writer (the teacher, by the way, of St. Basil and St. Chrysostom), as to accept the hostile testimony of Gregory of Nazianzus and other ecclesiastic chroniclers. Evidently the enthusiasm of Julian for the old religion was greatly due to his ardent love for ancient art, literature, and philosophy and to the resentful refusal of his mind to submit to the haughty dogmas of a priesthood which regarded the wisdom of Socrates and the art of Homer with equal contempt. But — such is the infirmity of human nature — he himself, a disciple of Plato, a learned scholar, a gifted orator, a remarkable writer of both classical languages, a model of temperance and chastity,26 fell a prey to the grossest and most foolish superstitions. He was honoured, he believed, by the intimate friendship and the manifest presence of the gods themselves; he consulted them through auguries and oracles and recognized their will in prodigies and their voice in omens.

His enthusiasm for the heroes of classical antiquity induced Julian to compete with Alexander the Great, as he had already attempted to rival the exploits of Caesar in Gaul.27 Ever since p52the days of the Emperor Alexander Severus (c. 226) Persia under her Sassanidae kings had given great trouble to the Romans. The present monarch, Sapor (Shapur) II, was the ninth of that great dynasty. He had already reigned more than half a century,28 and was to live till the fourth year of the reign of Theodosius and to see six Emperors succeed to the throne of the Eastern Empire. He had driven Constantine and the Imperial forces out of Mesopotamia, and threatened to expel them from Asia. The campaign of Julian against Sapor, for which vast preparations were made, ended, as we have seen, in his death; and it nearly ended in annihilation of his army. How Jovian succeeded in rescuing the remnant by an inglorious and disastrous retreat, and how during his short reign he gained the loud acclamations of all his Christian subjects by the re‑establishment of their religion and the gratitude of the anti-Arians by the restoration of Athanasius to the patriarchal throne of Alexandria, has been related (pp. 5‑6).

During the reigns of Valentinian and Valens, already sketched in the Historical Outline, perhaps the most important incident as regards religion was the conversion of the Visigoths, or the beginnings of their conversion, by Ulfilas (d. 381), although by the Trinitarians it was probably regarded as a somewhat Pyrrhic victory for Christianity. Valentinian seems to have been tolerant, or perhaps indifferent, in doctrinal matters, and to have earned respect at first for his manly and temperate character. In his later years, however, his naturally choleric disposition gained the mastery and converted him into a furious tyrant, whose victims were put to death by thousands on charges of treason and of magic.29

The hysterical terror caused by a belief in witchcraft produced also on the feeble-minded Valens a similar effect. From the extremities of Asia, we are told, young and old were p53dragged to the tribunal of Antioch, where the Emperor was wont to hold his court. So many were the prisoners that the imperial troops scarce sufficed to guard them, and in outlying provinces the fugitives, it is said, outnumbered the rest of the population.

But Valens did not limit himself to such atrocities. Three years after his accession he had been baptized by the Arian Patriarch of Constantinople. The imperial neophyte soon developed into a bigoted sectarian and a cruel persecutor of 'Athanasian heretics,' as he termed them, and soon the Eastern Empire was in a ferment with tumults. These lasted till at Caesarea Archbishop Basil — once the fellow-student of Julian at Athens and later renowned as hermit and as founder of the only monastic order of the Eastern Church — defied the Emperor, much as St. Ambrose afterwards at Milan defied Theodosius, and with similar success; for we are assured that Valens was so impressed that he swooned in the sight of all the congregation when repelled from the altar and atoned for his cruelties by granting Basil a large estate on which to found a hospital. Valens disappeared, as has been related, in the great battle of Hadrianople in 378.

In the West Valentinian had been succeeded by his son Gratian, a genial and sport-loving youth of sixteen,30 who accepted as his colleague his four-year‑old step-brother, Valentinian II, assigning to the child and his mother Justina the prefecture of Italy, and retaining that of the Gauls for himself. He was still a young man of twenty-four years when he was slain at Lyon by the usurper Maximus, and was apparently far more interested in his deer-forests and bear-preserves than in heretical subtleties, so that during his reign of eight years the early Gallican Church seems to have had respite from sectarian discords, though it did not slumber softly in the arms of orthodoxy (to use Gibbon's phrase), for it actively expended its zeal in destroying the relics of heathendom p54and of classic art. At Rome, moreover, Gratian (apparently in conjunction with Justina and her son) seems to have done much to eliminate paganism, for we hear of his suppressing the ancient college of priests, Vestal Virgins, and augurs, and demolishing the images of the gods.31

When Valens disappeared Gratian selected as the Augustus of the Eastern Empire a valiant soldier of Spanish birth, Theodosius, who had served in the imperial army in Britain, and had been made Duke of Moesia. The father of Theodosius, after brilliant campaigns in Britain and in Africa, had been executed at Carthage, apparently on some frivolous charge of treason brought against him by Justina. On the disgrace and execution of the elder Theodosius the son had withdrawn to his patrimony in Spain, where he intended to devote himself like Xenophon or Cincinnatus, to the improvement of his land and to the society of country folk. Hence after four months he was called by Gratian to fill the throne left vacant by the death of Valens.

For seventeen years (378‑395) Theodosius was the real ruler not only in the Eastern Empire but, as patron of the young Valentinian and his mother and as conqueror of Maximus and Arbogast,32 also in Italy and the far West, although he was undisputedly sole Emperor only for the last year of his reign.

During these seventeen years, which form the subject of the next chapter, paganism died out rapidly, and although we meet later some curious survivals, we may consider that the end of the reign of Theodosius, or the end of the fourth century, brought about the extinction of the old religion in the Empire and left the Trinitarian, or Athanasian, Church — especially the so‑called Catholic Church in Italy — in a position of dignity and influence in regard to the civil power.

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The Author's Notes:

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1 The names of St. Maurice (Switzerland) and St. Alban (England) are connected with this persecution.

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2 The remains of this enormous 'villa' accommodate much of the modern town of Spalato.

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3 A child of twelve; later the unambitious 'Patrician' Julius Constantius, father of the Emperor Julian.

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4 Some believe this to be the round Church of the Resurrection, almost entirely destroyed in 1808 by fire. Others believe the 'Dome of the Rock' (Mosque of Omar), which is said to stand on the site of Solomon's Temple, to have been originally the Constantine Church of the Holy Sepulchre; but the present building dates mainly from the seventh century and is probably of Mohammedan origin, covering the rock from which Mohammed flew to heaven. It can be recognized in Raffael's Sposalizio and other pictures. Constantine built several other churches in Jerusalem.

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5 Explained by some as a solar-ray phenomenon. Possibly also the labărum monogram was originally a solar symbol, such as zzz

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6 See Fig. 2 and explanation.

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7 The labarum, the cross, and the monogram are found on coins of the Christian Emperors, and the well-known words in hoc signo vinces or vincas occur.

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8 The 'Peace of the Church' celebrated last year (1913) its sixteenth centennial. But the fact of the promulgation of any edict is now becoming a subject of doubt, and it seems likely that in any case nothing more than tolerance and religious liberty was proclaimed.

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9 In one of his extant Orationes ad Sanctos he appeals to the evidence of Virgil's famous Fourth Eclogue, in which the pagan poet utters what is very like a prophecy of the coming of the Messiah. It is just possible that Virgil may have had access to so‑called Sibylline Books, of which 2000 were burnt by Augustus and some of which may have contained extracts from the Jewish prophets. St. Augustine and other Early Christian writers quote the Sibyllae with reverence. In Italian art they were frequently depicted with the Jewish prophets or with angels, as in the Sistine Chapel and in a fresco by Raffael in S. Maria della Pace at Rome.

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10 For many ages the worship of the sun-god was confused with that of Jehovah and of Christ. Cf. Greek Ἡλιος (Helios) with Jewish El, Elias, etc. Even to‑day the Greek islander confuses Helios with Elias. In Ireland St. Patrick had to preach against sun-worship.

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11 On coins of Constantine the sun is entitled 'the unconquered comrade,' an expression used in the cult of Mithras, the sun-god, alluding to the yearly recovery of his power after the solstice.

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12 These great nails (used for crucifixion) were discovered, according to the legend, by Helena. Constantine is said (but it seems incredible) to have used one to form a bit for his war-horse.

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13 For Crispus and his stepmother Fausta, whose three sons succeeded Constantine as Emperors, in spite of the shameful death of their mother, see p4 and Table, p19. The aged Helena, Constantine's mother, still smarting doubtless under her humiliation caused by Theodora, the sister of Fausta, is believed to have inflamed Constantine against his wife. She was steamed to death in a hot bath. In Raffael's Baptism of Constantine there is a finely conceived (of course imaginary) portrait of Crispus.

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14 Note also the violent recrudescence of internal discord on the restoration of Christianity by Jovian.

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15 Jovian's reverence for Athanasius almost amounted to deification.

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16 It should be here noticed that by the foundation of Constantinople, where Constantine erected fourteen important churches and decorated his new buildings with many marbles and ancient works of art from Greece, Rome felt herself not only deprived of her position as political metropolis, but was also aggrieved, as the seat of the successors of St. Peter, by the rival patriarchate — and still more by the attempt of Constantine (oblivious apparently of 'Donations' and other such concessions) to constitute himself the Head of the Church. 'The prerogatives of the King of Heaven' as Gibbon says, 'were settled, or modified, in the cabinet of an earthly monarch,' instead of in that of the Bishop of Rome. This seems to be the real beginning of the great feud — which has continued for nigh sixteen centuries. The next important step was the election by Constantius, Constantine's son, of an antipope (Felice), followed by the triumphant return of the deposed and exiled Pope Liberius and the flight of the Emperor's protégé.

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17 The persecution of the 'Catholics' by Gaiseric and his successors was of the most terrible nature. The name 'Catholic,' claimed by the Trinitarians, who were for centuries greatly outnumbered, first acquired some justification on the disappearance of Arianism.

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18 Even to name the heresies against which Athanasian orthodoxy had to contend is here impossible. Alexandria was constantly the arena of bloody conflicts — some of the bloodiest of which are recalled by the names of Hypatia and of Cyril, the patriarch and saint, her murderer.

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19 In passing we may here note that it was not till the tenth or even the eleventh century that Great Pan was truly dead — that the Götterdämmerung had deepened into night and the Olympian gods had fled gibbering to dark places underground. It was only then that Christianity extended itself over such regions as Bulgaria, Hungary, Saxony, Denmark, Scandinavia, and Russia. Irish and early British — and even the Anglican — Christianity was, as we shall see, much earlier.

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20 'Plotinus refused to permit his picture to be taken, because it would perpetuate the image of a body he deplored, and avoided all mention of the date or locality of his birth as things too dark and miserable to be remembered' (Archer Butler).

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21 Fellow-students of Julian's at Athens were St. Basil and the learned and eloquent Gregory of Nazianzus (in Cappadocia), afterwards Patriarch of Constantinople, hermit and saint, whose scathing account of Julian's personal character is due to the Emperor's apostasy.

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22 The ceremony of shaving his philosopher's beard and exchanging his Socratic cloak for the military and royal accoutrements of a prince of the Empire amused for a few days, says Gibbon, the levity of the court.

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23 See p28, footnote. The name Basilea is first mentioned some years [l]ater (374). (Susan note)

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24 Fragments survive of Julian's Treatise against the Christians, composed amid preparations for the Persian War.

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25 Probably a fiction invented by Gregory Nazianzen, but recounted by many writers.

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26 'The splendid and effeminate dress of the Asiatics,' says Gibbon, 'the curls and paint, the collars and bracelets, which had appeared so ridiculous in the person of Constantine the Great, were rejected by the philosophic mind of Julian.' He is said to have generally slept on the ground, even amid the magnificence of the Constantinople palace. His contempt of bodily ease led to the indecent neglect of cleanliness. In his Misopogon ('The Beard-hater,' i.e. the hater of philosophers, a satire against the people of Antioch, who had derided his habits and slovenly appearance) he descants with delight and with pride on the length of his nails and the inky blackness of his hands and his shaggy 'populous' beard.

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27 In his Epistles and Dispatches to the Senate he affects Caesar's style and is said (by Libanius) to have composed an account of his Gallic wars in imitation of Caesar's Commentaries. Most of his writings are in Greek. Our knowledge of his Gallic and Persian campaigns comes mostly from the work of Ammianus.

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28 He was crowned king before his birth, the Magi placing the crown on his mother's body.

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29 A wave of superstitious dread of witchcraft and books of magic seems at this time to have swept over the Roman world. To such waves is largely due the total destruction of many works of philosophy.

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30 Evidently also not without some literary education, for his tutor was one of the last true poets in the Latin language, Ausonius, whom Gratian, or his father, raised to the highest official dignities.

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31 He first caused consternation among the pagans at Rome by refusing indignantly the office of Pontifex. His zeal for demolishing pagan buildings and images was doubtless fired by the Gallican saints, Hilary of Poitiers and Martin of Tours.

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32 See Historical Outline, p8.