At length, the reading having been fully completed, and the listener's powers of flattery exhausted, the author carefully rewrapped his poem in its silken cover and carried it away, to read it, in turn, to other noble ladies, with the same transparent pretence of giving exclusive hearing of it to each. For a few moments Ænone remained in thoughtful silence, with her head bowed upon her hand; recalling the scattered fragments of the sonorous verses, and wondering why it was that, when each line had seemed so perfect in itself, and every thought so pure and noble in its purport and conception, the whole should have left upon her mind such an undefinable impress of dissatisfaction.
Cleotos, with unobtrusive scrutiny, seemed to read her thoughts, for, at the first intimation of her perplexity, he said:
'It is because the author of those verses has not sincerely felt the full meaning of what he has there written. For, with whatsoever display of ingenious and artistic skill fair sounding maxims of morality may be expressed, yet, if they come not from the heart, their utterance must seem hollow and unreal. I do not know this author—how or where he lives. It may be that in his daily life he is outwardly all that could be desired. But I know this—that he has written about virtue and death, not because he loves the one and fears not the other, but simply because, by a display of well-toned periods, he may more surely hope to gain the applause of the arena and the smiles of the court.'
'But why should not these sentiments, though called into being by personal ambition alone, give equal pleasure as if springing directly from the heart? Are they not, after all, as true?'
'Nay, honored mistress, neither are they true. This is again where they fail to please; for in your soul there is an instinct, though you may not know of it, which forbids that such cold and unsatisfactory reasoning should bring you comfort. He speaks of death: is it cheering to be told that, though the gods have appointed death to every person, they have given it, not as a veiled mercy, but rather as a dreadful fate—that there is no certainty about our future condition, but that, if we are destined to live again, it may be with the same evils encompassing us which bind us now—and that the slave may then still be a slave, destined forever to look up to and worship the high and mighty ones who trampled on him here?'
'That is, in truth, no comfort,' said Ænone. And she bowed her head upon her hands, and sadly thought how worthless to her would be the gift of eternal life, if her present sorrows were to follow her. 'But what can we do? If it were possible to discover and believe in some other fate, telling us that death, instead of being a dreaded pang, is a boon and relief to the sick and weary and oppressed—'
'There is a book,' said Cleotos—and for a moment he hesitated, as though fearful of proceeding—'there is a book which I have read, and which tells us all this. It says that death is not merely a fate, but is a source of blessing; since it leads to a world where the sufferings of this life shall be recompensed with abundant joy, not to the rich merely, but more especially to the poor and lowly.'
'Where is that book?' cried Ænone, with sudden energy, as the wondrous depth and power of the sentiment flashed upon her. 'Where can I see and read it? He who can talk like that, must surely have said still more?'
'I have not that book,' answered Cleotos. 'I have only this little copy of a small portion of it;' and he hesitatingly drew from beneath his tunic a single small leaf of discolored parchment, closely filled with Greek characters. 'But being at Corinth, a year ago, I was permitted to see the book itself, and to hear portions of it read. It was written to a Christian church there, by one Paul, a leader of that sect.'
At the word 'Christian' the first impulse of Ænone was to shrink back, not knowing but that even the presence of one who had ever come into contact with any of that despised sect might be injurious to her. For at once she began to recall many of the tales which she had heard to its discredit—its members hiding as outcasts in the caves and dens of the earth—their repeated insults to the gods—their proud and unaccountable worship of a malefactor—their sacrifice of infants—and other exaggerations and calumnies, begotten in malice or ignorance, and thence widely spread, making it not hard to believe that the only fate fit for those to whom they related was a life of persecution and a cruel death in the arena.
But only for a moment did this instinctive horror control her. The single doctrine which she had just heard advanced already began to bear its fruits. It seemed, indeed, not unlikely that one who could write such truths, and those, his disciples, who could so gratefully treasure them up, might not, after all, be wantonly wicked, but, at the worst, might be merely victims of mistaken zeal. And then, in turn, she thought of much that had been related to her in their favor. During her life at Rome, indeed, she had heard no mention of the Christian sect, unless accompanied with sneers or contempt. But she remembered how that in Ostia, while she was yet a very young girl, she had heard it sometimes whispered that the Christians were kind and loving to all the world, and free from many sins in which other men openly exulted, and that, through their great love for their founder, they organized charities which had never before been even thought of—and how that once, when she had been very sick, a strange woman had nursed her into health and refused all payment for it, alleging that her religion bade her give herself up to such tasks—and how that she had once seen pass by, one who was pointed out to her as a holy man among the sect—whose name indeed she could not remember, but whose mild and serene expression yet lived in her recollection. It was hardly possible that one whose face was so radiant with universal love and benevolence as to impress itself thus lastingly upon the heart of a young child could have been very wicked. Nor did it seem likely that Cleotos, whose greatest weakness was that his life had been almost too innocent and trusting, could speak well of a sect which worthily ought to be persecuted. And then again she thought upon that little book to the sect at Corinth, and she bade Cleotos to read a verse or two. He did so. At another time she might have listened as she had listened to the moral maxims of the poet Emilius—judging well of it, perhaps, for the beauty of its words, but, beyond that, regarding it simply as some new and more original expression of long-accepted philosophy. But now, in her trouble, she felt that there was something in it beyond all known philosophy—a new development of faith, appealing to the heart, and speaking comfort to all who were in misery. It surely could not be thatsuch words were the emanations of an evil influence.
'Art thou—answer me, Cleotos—art thou one of the sect of Christians?' she inquired.
'How can I tell?' he responded. 'I have so often asked that question of my heart, and yet have not been able to understand what it has said to me. There are times when I think that I must pray only to the gods of Olympus, and that all I have heard or read about other gods must be untrue. And again, when I read this little parchment of mine, and remember other like things that have been told to me, and see how they all speak of death as a relief to the sorrowing, and of another life in which the down trodden and the captive shall be recompensed for what they have suffered here, and know that I am one of those who need such recompense—then I think that perhaps the only true God is the God of the Christians. But I can learn so little about it all, that I cannot, from my own judgment, determine which must be right.'
'Perhaps,' thoughtfully responded Ænone, 'it may be that if you tell me all you know about it, I may be able to assist your conclusions. Who knows what light I myself need, or how much of good we may borrow from this new religion? It cannot be wrong to examine for one's self, and the gods will not be angry if we gain good doctrine even from wrong sources, so long as it may make us better. To-morrow, therefore, let us begin.'
Upon the morrow, therefore, and for many succeeding days, the mistress and the slave spent stolen moments in groping after the truth of that faith which makes the high and the low equal. It was a blind search, for neither of them had any definite comprehension of the history and doctrine upon which the new religion had been founded. Cleotos had enjoyed the best opportunities of acquainting himself with it, having naturally, in his wanderings about the East, and in his contact with the poor and enslaved of many lands, heard much respecting the Christian churches and their belief; but having had no instructor, a great portion of what he had thus received came to him in but distorted and puzzling array. And Ænone could not comprehend how, when the gods ruled Rome, and Rome had scattered the Jews, one whom the Jews had had the power to slay could be greater than all. But between them, for their study, lay the leaf of parchment, closely covered with writing, beside which the proudest and choicest philosophy of Rome seemed mockery; and though they could not understand its full meaning, they knew that it spoke such good words that, at the least, though it may have come from erring men, it was no less worthy to have come from a God. Whatever the real nature of the faith itself, here was certainly a proof that among its attributes were mercy and peace and brotherly love toward all.
What might have been the consequences if Ænone had been free to pursue the investigation as far as she wished—to send for other books to aid her—to consult more learned teachers, who, though perhaps hiding in secret shelter, were yet attainable with proper search, cannot be known. It is not improbable that, in the end, one more might have been added to the list of those few Roman women of high degree who even then gave up all their rank and state in order to share the persecutions of the Nazarenes. But it was otherwise ordered. Already indications, each slight in itself, but altogether of important bearing, began to present themselves before her, warning her that jealous eyes were watching her, and that, if she would avoid the consequences of misconstruction, she must bring her feeble investigations to a close.
Until now, Leta, in her struggle to alienate the husband from the wife, had been actuated simply by the exigenciesof her ambitious policy. Bearing in her heart no especial hatred toward her mistress, she would willingly have spared her, had not the circumstances of the case seemed to require the ruin of the one preliminary to the exaltation of the other. But now, other incentives to her efforts were added. First in her mind came jealousy of Cleotos; for though she had cast him off, and bade him stifle the yearnings of his heart, and, by the cool exercise of intellect and craft alone, seek a better fortune for himself, it was hardly natural that she should feel pleased to have him so soon appear to take her at her word. She would have better liked to see him display more prolonged sorrow for her loss. Then came jealousy of Ænone, who had apparently been able to console him so early. And mingled with all this, there began to press upon her a startling thought—one which she at first contemned as unlikely and absurd—but which, though continually driven away, so obstinately returned and commended itself to her attention with newer plausibility, that at last she began to give bitter and anxious heed to it. What if this constant communication between Ænone and Cleotos were to result in a mutual love? It was no uncommon thing in those days for the high-born lady to cast her eyes upon the slave. How mortifying to herself, then, if, while she had been exerting all her powers of fascination, taxing the utmost resources of her intellect, and making of her whole existence one labored study for the purpose of gaining an undue influence over the lord, Cleotos, without art or disguise or apparent effort, or any advantage other than that afforded by his simple-hearted, trusting nature, should have quietly won from the other side of the house a victory of almost equal importance? And further than this—what if the lord were to perish in some brawl or by the hired assassin of a rival house; and Ænone, released from her thraldom, and despising conventional scruples—as again was not uncommon among the Roman ladies of that day—were to exalt her favorite with legal honors, and thus make herself, Leta, his slave? This, to be sure, was an improbable chance; but a mind as active as her own did not disdain to foresee and provide against all contingencies.
Then, in addition to everything else, she became absorbed in the one overwhelming and bitter reflection, that after all her sacrifice and labor, the anticipated success might be escaping her. It is true that, thanks to her efforts, the distance between Sergius and Ænone had widened, until it seemed that there could never be a perfect reunion; but all this, if the state of partial neglect which had existed in the beginning could be relied upon as an indication, was a consequence which might easily, in time, have come of itself. It is true that Sergius had yielded himself a willing victim to the unlawful fascinations thrown around him; but yet Leta could not avoid seeing that he regarded her not with the deep, earnest love which she had hoped to inspire, but rather with the trifling carelessness of one giving himself up to the plaything of the hour. Not having, from the very first, been chary of the sidelong glance and the winning smile, and whatever grace of style or manner could tempt him to pursuit, as an illusive appearance of success seemed to beckon her onward, her heart at times grew desperate with the apprehension that all had been in vain. For Sergius, content that the wife whom he neglected did not disturb his repose with idle complaints, had no thought of inflicting any deeper injury upon her, being well satisfied to have her remain and confer honor upon him by the grace with which she maintained the dignity of his house. And though well pleased to sun himself in Leta's smile, there never came to him the thought that the slave could be worthy of any exaltation, or that her highest ambition could prompt her to desire more thana continuance of the companionship with which he honored her. All this Leta began to dimly see; and there were times when, strive to hide it from her heart as she would, it seemed as though he might be even growing weary of her.
Thus tormented with doubt and jealousy and the constantly increasing suspicion of baffled ambition, how was she to act? To accept her situation as a decree of fate, to fawn upon the mistress like a patient slave, and, if the lord were to tire of her in the end and give himself up to other captivations, to submit unmurmuringly to the unavoidable necessity? All this some might consent to do; but surely not one like herself, gifted with indomitable will, and stung to desperation with the sense of great and irreparable sacrifices. To her there could be but one course. She must abandon her slow and cautious policy, and seek the earliest opportunity to urge the matter to its crisis. If, by sparing no watchfulness or ingenuity, or by the exercise of bold and vigorous manœuvring, she could produce a quarrel and final separation between Sergius and his wife, it might not be impossible for her to impress upon him how much she was necessary to his happiness, and thereby elevate herself into the vacant place. And if unsuccessful, at the least she would be but sharing a ruin which would fall like an avalanche upon all alike.
The last great imperial persecution of the Christians under Diocletian and Galerius, which was aimed at the entire uprooting of the new religion, ended with the edict of toleration of 311 and the tragical ruin of the persecutors. Galerius died soon after of a disgusting and terrible disease (morbus pedicularis), described with great minuteness by Eusebius and Lactantius. 'His body,' says Gibbon, '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 in 305, and in 313 put an end to his imbittered life by suicide. In his retirement he found more pleasure in raising cabbage than he had found in ruling the empire; a confession we may readily believe. (President Lincoln, of the United States, during the dark days of the civil war, in December, 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. 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 Cæsars.
This great epoch is marked by the reign of Constantine I. He understood the signs of the time, and acted accordingly. He was the man for the times, as the times were prepared for him by that Providence which controls both and fits them for each other. He placed himself at the head of trueprogress, 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 to 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 measured more by what hedidthan by what hewas. 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 Cæsar, the founder of Constantinople 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 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.
In judging of this remarkable man and his reign, we must by all 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 spirit 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 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 political wisdom, which, putting itself at the head of the age, clearly saw that idolatry had outlived itself in the Roman 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 politics 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 harmony his first object in the Donatist and Arian controversies, and gave 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 eternal 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 consolidatedand upheld until at least the seeds of Christianity and civilization should be planted 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 departing, while internal civil and religious dissensions and the outward pressure of the barbarians threatened a gradual dissolution 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 outward success, and to ascribe a magical virtue to signs and ceremonies. His whole family was swayed by religious sentiment, which manifested itself in very different forms, in the devout pilgrimages of his Helena, the fanatical Arianism of Constantia and Constantius, and the fanatical paganism of Julian. Constantine adopted Christianity first as a superstition, and put it by the side of his heathen superstition, till finally in his conviction the Christian vanquished the pagan, though without itself developing into a pure and enlightened faith.
At first Constantine, 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, Byzantium, under the protection of the God of the Martyrs and the heathen goddess of Fortune; and down to the end of his life he retained the title and the dignity of aPontifex Maximus, 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 inscriptionSol invictus. Of course these inconsistencies may be referred also to policy and accommodation to the toleration edict of 313. Nor is it difficult to adduce parallels of persons who in passing from Judaism to Christianity, or from Romanism to Protestantism, have honestly 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 renounce 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 compared by flatterers with Apollo. He was tall, broad shouldered, handsome, and of a remarkably vigorous and healthy constitution, but given to excessive vanity in his dress and outward demeanor, always wearing an oriental diadem, a helmet 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 beneficence bordering on wastefulness were prominent. Many of his laws and regulations breathed the spirit of Christian justice and humanity, promoted the elevation of the female sex, improved 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 fortunate, and themost influential of the Roman 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 the bloody path of war, the goal of his ambition, the sole possession of the empire, yea, in the very year in which he summoned the great council of Nicæa, he ordered the execution of his conquered rival and brother-in-law, Licinius, in breach of a solemn promise of mercy (324). Not satisfied with this, he caused soon afterward, 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 toward his stepmother Fausta, but is generally regarded as innocent. This domestic and political tragedy emerged from a vortex of mutual suspicion and rivalry, and calls to mind the conduct of Philip II. toward Don Carlos, of Peter the Great toward his son Alexis, and of Soliman the Great toward his son Mustapha. 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 overheated bath. But the accounts of the cause and manner of her death are so late and discordant as to make Constantine'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 censured in turn by the Christians and pagans, the orthodox and the Arians, as they successively experienced his favor or dislike. 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 probably 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 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 religions; and his life bears plain marks of both. When at last on his deathbed he submitted to baptism, with the remark, 'Now let us cast away allduplicity,' 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 edictof toleration, his legislation in favor of Christianity, his baptism and death.
Constantine, 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 272, either in Britain or at Naissus (now called Nissa), a town of Dardania, in Illyricum. His mother was Helena, daughter of an innkeeper, the first wife of Constantius, afterward divorced, when Constantius, for political 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 Christianity in the Roman empire.
Constantine first distinguished himself in the service of Diocletian in the Egyptian and Persian wars; went afterward to Gaul and Britain, and in the Prætorium at York was proclaimed 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 respectful, tolerant regard descended to Constantine, and the good effects 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 Christian God, and uniformly prospered, while the emperors who worshipped the heathen gods, died a miserable death; therefore, that I may enjoy a happy life and reign, I will imitate 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 heavily in the mind of an ambitious captain, who looked forward 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 bishop Hosius of Cordova, a native of Egypt, is intended), persuaded 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 toward the Christian religion he gave in his contest with the pagan Maxentius, who had usurped the government of Italy and Africa, and is universally represented as a cruel, dissolute tyrant, hated by heathens and Christians alike. Called by the Roman people to their aid, Constantine marched from Gaul across the Alps with an army of ninety-eight thousand soldiers of every nationality, and defeated Maxentius in three battles; the last in October, 312, at the Milvian bridge, near Rome, where Maxentius 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 the event must have occurred shortly before the final victory over Maxentius in theneighborhood of Rome. 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 on the one hand the victory of Christianity over paganism in the Roman empire, 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 supernatural character.
The occurrence 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 Constantine 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 from Gaul to Italy (the spot and date are not specified), the emperor, while earnestly praying to the true God for light and help at this critical time, saw, together with his army, in clear daylight toward evening, a shining cross in the heavens above the sun, with the inscription: 'By this conquer;' and in the following night Christ himself appeared to him while he slept, and directed 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 Constantine 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 initial letters of Christ's name on the shields of the soldiers. According to Rufinus, a later historian, who elsewhere depends entirely on Eusebius, and can therefore not be regarded as a proper witness in the case, the sign of the cross appeared to Constantine in a dream (which agrees with the account of Lactantius), and upon his awaking in terror, an angel (not Christ) exclaimed to him: 'Hoc vince.' Lactantius, Eusebius, and Rufinus are the only Christian writers of the fourth century, 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 Nazarius, in a panegyric upon the emperor, pronounced March 1, 321, apparently at Rome, speaks of an army of divine warriors and a divine assistance which Constantine received in the engagement with Maxentius; but he converts it to the service of heathenism by recurring to old prodigies, such as the appearance of Castor and Pollux.
This famous tradition may be explained either as a real miracle implying a personal appearance of Christ, or as a pious fraud, or as a natural phenomenon in the clouds and an optical illusion, or finally as a prophetic dream.
The propriety of a miracle, parallel to the signs in heaven which preceded the destruction 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 establishment of Christianity in the empire. But even if we waive the purely critical objections to the Eusebian narrative, the assumed connection, in this case, of the gentle Prince of peace with the god of battle, and the subserviency of the sacred symbol 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 individualsbeyond the ordinary limits. We should suppose, moreover, that Christ, if he had really appeared to Constantine either in person (according to Eusebius) or through angels (as Rufinus and Sozomen 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 Eusebius, 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 his 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' all claim to credibility and common respectability. Besides, it should be remembered that the older testimony of Lactantius, or whoever was the author of the work on the Deaths of Persecutors, is quite independent of that of Eusebius, and derives additional force from the vague heathen rumors of the time. Finally theHoc vince, which has passed into proverbial significance 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 underlie the tradition, and the question only is this, whether it was an external, viable phenomenon or an internal experience.
The hypothesis of a natural formation of the clouds, which Constantine by an optical illusion mistook for a supernatural sign of the cross, besides smacking of the exploded rationalistic explanation of the New 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 Rufinus 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 prevailing ideas of the age. Tertullian and other ante-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 dreams. 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 aprovidentia 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 divinerevelations and admonitions are communicated to men.
The facts, therefore, may have been these: Before the battle, Constantine, leaning already toward Christianity as probably the beat and most hopeful of the various religions, seriously sought in prayer, as he related to Eusebius, the assistance of the God of the Christians, while his heathen antagonist, Maxentius, according to Zosimus, was consulting the sibylline books and offering sacrifice to the idols. Filled with mingled fears and hopes 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 doubt were in his own army, he constructed thelabarum,[A]afterward so called, that is, the sacred standard of the Christian cross with the Greek monogram of Christ,[B]which he had 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 Maxentius.
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 afterward the senate erected to him a triumphal arch of marble, which to this day, within sight of the sublime ruins of the pagan Colosseum, indicates 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 Nazarius, in his eulogy on Constantine, might take it for the celestial guardian power of theurbs æterna.
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 oppression[C]became thenceforward the badge of honor and dominion, and was invested in the emperor's view, according to the spirit of the church 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 enemies; 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 Rome (which occurred October 27, 312), either in the spring or summer of 312, Constantine, 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 Constantine and Licinius 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 also—what neither the first nor perhaps the second edict had done—allowed every heathen subject to adopt it with impunity. At the same time the church buildings and property confiscated in the Diocletian persecution were ordered to be restored, and private property-owners to be indemnified from the imperial treasury.
In 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 absolutistic 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 specifically of Catholic hierarchical Christianity, with its exclusiveness toward heretical and schismatic sects, to be the religion of the state. For, once put on an 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 Constantine 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 andcourt dress he wished for his empire. So early as the year 313 we find the bishop Hosius of Cordova among his counsellors, and heathen writers ascribe to the bishop even a magical influence over the emperor. Lactantius, also, and Eusebius of Cæsarea belonged to his confidential circle. He exempted 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 asdies Domini, but asdies 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 influenced 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 proportion, were baptized in Rome, and that the emperor had promised to each convert a white garment and twenty pieces of gold, is at least in accordance with the spirit of that reign, though the fact itself, in all probability, is greatly exaggerated.
Constantine 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 himself 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 office, with banishment, and in some instances perhaps even with bloody persecution. This gave the political strife for the monarchy between himself and Constantine the character also of a war of religions; and the defeat of Licinius in the battle of Adrianople, in July, 321, and at Chalcedon, in September, was a new triumph of the standard of the cross over the sacrifices of the gods; save that Constantine 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 church, he summoned the council of Nice, and himself attended it; banished the Arians, though he afterward recalled them; and, in his monarchical spirit of uniformity, showed great zeal for the settlement of all theological disputes, while he was blind to their deep significance. He first introduced the practice of subscription 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 Rome, where it was hallowed by its great traditions, Constantine, by divine 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, or orientalizing and dividing the empire. In the selection of the unrivalled locality he showed more taste and genius than the founders of Madrid, Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, or Washington. With incredible rapidity, and by all the means within reach of an absolute monarch, he turned this nobly situated town, connecting two seas and two continents, into a splendid residence and a new Christian Rome, 'for which now,' as Gregory ofNazianzen expresses it, 'sea and land emulate 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 mistaken, 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 residence of a bishop, who not only claimed the authority of the apostolic see of neighboring Ephesus, but soon outshone the 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 invitations were issued, and the citizens flocked in great crowds to the palace to hear the imperial preacher, who would in vain try 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 exhortations by their works. One of these productions is still extant, in which he recommends Christianity in a characteristic strain, and in proof of its divine origin cites especially the fulfilment of prophecy, including the sibylline books and the Fourth Eclogue of Virgil, 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 true, 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 immorality, as in the obscene worship of Venus in Phenicia; or in places which were especially sacred to the Christians, as the sepulchre of Christ and the grove of Mamre; and he caused a number of deserted temples and images to be destroyed or turned 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 repetition 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 Constantine, which contrasts well with the violent fanaticism of his sons, accords the postponement of his own baptism to his lastsickness. For this he had the further motives of a superstitious 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 communions are now. But 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 empire, long before his baptism! Strange as this inconsistency 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 admitted him, at least tacitly, to the enjoyment of nearly all the privileges of believers, before he had taken upon himself even a single obligation 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 admitted 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 he 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. He meant the Christian as against the heathen religion, and whatever of Arianism may have polluted his baptism, was for the Greek Church fully neutralized 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 baptismal robe; and died a few days after, on Pentecost, May 32, 337, trusting in the mercy of God, and leaving a long, a fortunate, 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 to be imitated or admired, but much to be remembered, and deeply to be studied.'
His remains were removed in a golden coffin by a procession 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, after its ancient custom, proudly ignoring the great religious revolution of the age, enrolled him among the gods of the heathen Olympus. 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 ofIsapostolos, 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 grateful remembrance of his services to the cause of Christianity and civilization.
Constantine marks the beginning of the downfall of ancient and classical paganism. Still it dragged out a sickly old age for about two hundred years longer, until at last it died of incurable consumption, without the hope of a resurrection.
The final dissolution of heathenism in the Eastern empire may be datedfrom the middle of the fifth century. In the year 435, Theodosius II. commanded the temples to be destroyed or turned into churches. There still appear some heathens in civil office and at court so late as the beginning of the reign of Justinian I. (527-567). 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 seminary 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-Roman emperor, Romulus Augustus, or, in contemptuous 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 century, 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 Græco-Roman heathenism, as a system of worship, was buried under the ruins of the Western empire, which sank under the storms of the great migration. It is remarkable that the northern barbarians labored with the same zeal in the destruction 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 churches of the apostles Peter and Paul should be spared, as inviolable sanctuaries; and he showed a humanity, which Augustin justly attributes to the influence of Christianity (even perverted Arian Christianity) on these barbarous people. The Christian name, he says, which the heathens blaspheme, has effected 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 successor, Theodoric the Ostrogoth, who was recognized by the East-Roman emperor Anastasius as king of Italy (A.D. 500), and was likewise an Arian. 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 conquerors. Christianity triumphed over both.
This is the end of Græco-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 appearance of Christianity it comprised all the wisdom, literature, art, and political power of the civilized world, and led all into the field against the weaponless religion of the crucified Nazarene. After a conflict of four or five centuries 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 martyrdom; while the Christian church showed countless hosts of confessors and blood-witnesses, and Judaism lives to-day in spite of all 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 fulfilment to relate to heathenism itself.
The last glimmer of life in the oldreligion was its pitiable prayer for toleration and its 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, oracles and prodigies ceased, sibylline books were burned, temples 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, the spirit of Græco-Roman 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 spirit of God. It lives also in many idolatrous and superstitious usages of the Greek and Roman 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 outwardly 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 turned 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. The word of the great apostle of the Gentiles was here fulfilled: 'All things are yours.' The ancient classics, delivered from the dæmoniacal possession of idolatry, have come into the service 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 Christian learning and culture. This is the noblest, the most worthy, and most complete victory of Christianity, transforming the enemy into friend and ally.