Not the
least of the debts which the world owes to fourth century Christianity is
this invention of open hospitals.
least of the debts which the world owes to fourth century Christianity is
this invention of open hospitals.
Cambridge Medieval History - v1 - Christian Roman Empire and Teutonic Kingdoms
They start from the thought of
God's goodness and justice. Goodness required that man should be
delivered from the bondage of misery; justice required something more
than mere repentance in order to effect that deliverance, nothing less
than the offering up of the human nature which contained the sinful
principle. This was achieved by Him who assumed human nature and
represented man. Thus far Athanasius. Augustine, who is equally
insistent on the fact of the sacrifice of Christ, goes deeper than
Athanasius into the reason for the particular form that it took and
the effects that it wrought. He shares Athanasius' admiration of the
divine goodness exhibited in the long-suffering of God and the
voluntary humility of the God-man ; he is even more jealous for the
divine justice. It was just that Satan who had acquired right over
the race should be satisfied in respect of his claims. But Satan took
more than his due, slaying the innocent. It was therefore just that he
should be forced to relinquish the sinners in behalf of whom the sinless
suffered.
The controversy concerning Free Will and Grace also affected the
idea of the Church and sacraments. Until the rise of Pelagianism a very
wide scope was allowed here to Free Will. The Grace conveyed by the
sacraments, which were not to be had outside the Church, was considered
1 The idea of satisfactio per poenam so often ascribed to the Latin fathers is
altogether foreign to Roman Law and belongs to the sphere of Germanic institutions.
In Roman Law the alternative is solvere satisve facere.
CH. XX.
## p. 588 (#618) ############################################
588
The Church
to be conditioned by the faith and life of the recipient. It was tacitly
assumed that these factors were within the control of the will. That is
to say, Grace preceded Election. This, according to Augustine's mind
matured by reflection and controversy, was an inversion of the truth.
His theory of Predestination demanded that Election should precede
Grace. And thus side by side with his practical belief in an external
society in which good and bad, wheat and tares, were growing together, par-
taking of the means of grace, i. e. the visible church, he conceived the novel
idea of a spiritual society of elect, the communion of saints, the invisible
church, whose members were known to God alone, whether they were
within the fold of the external society or not. Of this body it might
be affirmed without a trace of bigotry, extra ecclesiam nulla salus. The
two conceptions are not kept strictly apart, and the characteristics of the
invisible church are constantly transferred by Augustine to the visible
church. This body, whose growing nucleus is thus supplied by the
invisible church, is the civitas Dei on earth. Over against it stands the
civitas terrena, the earthly polity. The two states, separate in idea,
origin, purpose, and practice, are yet dependent the one on the other,
giving and taking influence. The civitas Dei needs the practical support
of the civitas terrena in order to be a visible state. The civitas terrena
needs the moral support of the civitas Dei in order to be a real state,
for a civitas only exists on a basis of love and justice and by participation
in the sole source of existence, which is God. The city of God is the
only real civitas, gradually absorbing the civitas terrena and borrowing
its authority and power in order to carry out the divine purpose.
Magistrate and legislator become the sons and servants of the church,
bound to execute the church's objects. We have here the germ of the
medieval theory of the church as the kingdom of God on earth, but it
must be noted that Augustine does not start with the assumption of
identity, does not use church and kingdom of God as interchangeable
terms, despite the assertion ecclesia iam nunc est regnum, which he is the
first of Christian writers to make. Even in this phrase he does not
mean that the church is actually the kingdom, but only that it is so
potentially. The full and perfect realisation he reserves until the con-
summation of all things.
From the earliest days of Christianity the words sacrament and
mystery were borrowed to denote any sacred secret thing, and especially the
means of grace. The number of these was not distinctly specified, for
Christians, believing that the Church was the store-house of unlimited
grace, were not careful to count the means. Two however stood out
pre-eminent, Baptism and the Lord's Supper. With regard to the
doctrine underlying these two, it may be said that it was in the fourth
and fifth centuries essentially what it had been before. No doubt
Christian experience and the struggle with paganism and heresy tended
to produce explanations, but the main thought was always simply that
## p. 589 (#619) ############################################
The Sacraments
589
a
of life bestowed and life maintained. The early believers had not
asked how, but the question could not but arise, and that rather in
connexion with the Eucharist than with Baptism. For the water of
Baptism did not invite speculation to the same degree as did the bread
and wine, and their relation to the Body and Blood of Christ. Not that
Baptism was ever regarded merely as a ceremony of initiation ; it was
the fear of losing, through post-baptismal sin, the grace conveyed by
Baptism that in our period kept many from the font. Other causes such
as negligence, reluctance to forgo the world, and various fancies and
superstitions, combined to render Baptism, as in Constantine's case, the
completion rather than the commencement of Christian life. Such delay
was not the intention of the Church, and the necessity of checking slackness,
together with the Western doctrine of prevenient grace helping the first
step Godward, brought about a strict insistence on the necessity of Baptism
and a readiness, in the West at least, to allow the Baptism of heretics,
provided the right form of words was used. But both wisdom and
generosity were shewn by the refusal to tie down the operation of the Holy
Spirit to ritual action, and by the admission of faith, repentance, or martyr-
dom, as substitutes for formal Baptism when this could not be had. It
must not be forgotten however that Augustine, when he found the
Donatists proof against persuasion, advocated a resort to violence—coge
intrare.
The Eucharist was more obviously mysterious, and at a time when the
rite was attended by many who were more conscious of its mysterious
experience than of any effect it might have upon life, speculation was active,
and teachers laboured to assist inquiry by analogy and illustration which
often grew to something more. Thus from Gregory of Nyssa came an
impulse which finally developed into the doctrine of transubstantiation.
Not that Gregory means to teach this; the passage in his works containing
the germ is not a definition. His style is highly imaginative and the Oratio
catechetica is full of similes. One of these is borrowed, but without
hesitation, from physiology. Gregory draws a parallel between the
change of bread and wine, by digestion, into the human body, and the
change of the sacramental elements, by consecration, into Christ's
immortal body. Using Aristotelian terms, he says that in each case the
constituents are arranged under a fresh form. This is not transub-
stantiation but transelementation (METAOTOIXEiwors). The image
commended itself, and it was repeated and elaborated by other writers
until at length the complete identification of the bread and wine with
the Body and Blood of Christ became the authoritative doctrine of the
Eastern Church. The Roman doctrine of transubstantiation has points
of resemblance with Gregory's illustration, but it is expressed in terms of
a different and later philosophy. Gregory teaches a change of form ;
the schoolmen, a change of both material and form, which they explain
by the help of the distinction between substantia and accidentia. The
CH, XX.
## p. 590 (#620) ############################################
590
The Empire and the Church. Organisation
great contribution of the age to the doctrine of the Sacraments is the
view that in a real sense they continue the process of the Incarnation.
Human nature first became divine in the person of Christ by union with
the divine Word, and subsequently and repeatedly in the person of the
individual believer through union with Christ in the Sacraments. This
is the teaching of both East and West as represented by Hilary and
Gregory of Nyssa. As in Baptism the soul is joined to Christ through
faith, so in the Eucharist is the body, being transformed by the Eucharistic
food, joined with the Body of the Lord. Thus the special purpose of the
Incarnation, viz. the deification of man, is being constantly fulfilled.
The language in which this noble conception is expressed, especially in
the East, tends to encourage a superstitious reverence for the outward
symbols, which the Greek fathers frequently have occasion to correct.
Augustine earnestly desired that the civitas terrena should help to
establish the civitas Dei, and that the civitas Dei should leaven with
moral influence the civitas terrena. It remains for us to see how far
his dream was realised, in other words how far the Christian Empire
affected the Church and was in turn affected by it.
The influence of the Empire upon the internal and external structure
of the Church had been felt from the first. Thus, the development of the
monarchical episcopate was doubtless due in great measure to the example
of Roman law, which required all corporate bodies to have a representative.
The mark of Roman law is also seen in the Western doctrines of Free
Will, Sin and its transmission, and Atonement. The language in which
these problems are stated is the phraseology of the courts, and recalls
the Roman penal code, theory of contract and delict, debt, universal
succession, etc.
The effect of civil order is seen in certain pieces of church adminis-
tration which though themselves practical are the expression of under-
lying theory, and therefore call for notice here.
(1) The Church was organised in “dioceses” (with exarchs or
patriarchs), provinces (with metropolitans or primates), and cities (with
bishops), much in the manner of the Empire. This arrangement was not
directly imposed upon the Church by the Empire nor did it exactly
correspond to the imperial distribution. But the sudden rise of the
see of Byzantium from a subordinate position into the next place of
honour after Rome proves that civil importance was a factor in deter-
mining ecclesiastical precedence.
(2) The bargain proposed by Nestorius to Theodosius II, “Give me
the world free from heretics and I will give thee heaven,” was in a fair
way of fulfilment. The emperors from being foes became powerful friends
to the Church, able to give the material support that Augustine desired.
Constantine would no doubt gladly have enjoyed the same controlling
relation towards his adopted religion as he held towards the religion of
which he and his successors till Valens remained chief pontiffs. But the
## p. 591 (#621) ############################################
The Empire and the Church. Taxation and property 591
ahurch was too strong for that, and the rescript of A. D. 314, in which he
declared that the sentence of the bishops must be regarded as that of
Christ Himself, shews what their power was, and hints what they might
have done with it. Still, he was allowed to style himself (perhaps in
jest) et LO KOTOS TV &KTÒs, and he set the example of convoking general
councils, the decrees of which were published under imperial authority
and thus acquired a political importance. Those only who accepted
their rulings could enjoy the rights of state favour, and civil penalties
were presently threatened in the interest of civic peace against all
who declined to acknowledge them.
(3) Pagan teachers, priests and doctors were already exempt from
certain civil charges on the ground of professional usefulness. To this
list Constantine added first the African, and later all Christian, clergy;
and them he allowed to engage in trade untaxed because they could give
their profits to the poor. Clerical families and property were likewise
excused all the ordinary responsibilities of curiales. Many citizens sought
this immunity from taxation, even after the State, fearing the loss of
useful service, had forbidden the ordination of curials; and the Church
came to welcome the exclusion of the well-to-do from her ministry as a
protection against unworthy ministers, as she also did the removal of
exemption from trade-taxes, for the age was averse from any interference
with the spiritual duties of the clergy. But the fact that privileges
were withdrawn from the heathen priesthood and bestowed on the
clergy enhanced the position of the latter as a favoured class.
(4) The Church was distinguished as a corporation capable of
receiving donations and bequests. Earlier confiscations and restorations
prove that the Church had held property long before the time of
Constantine. But Constantine bestowed upon it a more extensive privilege
than was known to any heathen religious foundation. Whereas the
latter could only be endowed under special circumstances, and, with few
exceptions, never acquired the right to receive bequests, “the sacred
and venerable Christian churches” might be left anything by anybody.
Abuse of the privilege gradually led to its withdrawal under Valentinian
III, and Christian writers deplore the cause more keenly than the result;
but the growing wealth was as a rule generously applied to philanthropic
work started by the Church, and Augustine was justified in calling upon
churchmen to remember Christ as well as their sons. They were the
more likely to listen, since the old Jewish belief that alms win heaven
had taken root and sprung up in the doctrine of merit.
(5) The Church secured another prerogative, which was fraught
with serious consequences, in the establishment of episcopal courts as an
integral part of the secular judicial system with final jurisdiction in civil
cases. But it had analogy with the Roman institution of recepti arbitri,
an extrajudicial arrangement allowing the civil authority to step in and
enforce the decision of the arbitrator. At a time when, as we learn from
CH. XX.
## p. 592 (#622) ############################################
592
The Empire and the Church. Justice
Salvian and Ammianus, the courts were monuments of justice delay
and of chicanery, it was no small boon to be allowed to carry a civil sus
to the arbitration of a bishop whose equitable decision had the force o
law. The early history of this remarkable legislation is obscure an.
complicated, but it clearly contained in germ the clerical exemption froi
criminal procedure which formed one of the most difficult problems . n
medieval politics. The episcopal jurisdiction underwent considerable
limitations and bishops lost their position of privilege before the liw;
but appeal to the episcopal court became a tradition in the Church.
(6) There are other indications of the great influence acquired by
bishops in the administration of justice. Into their hands passed the
right of intercession formerly exercised in behalf of clients by wealthy
patrons or hired rhetoricians. One of their duties, according to Ambrose,
was to rescue the condemned from death, and he himself was active in
its discharge. So Basil interceded for the unfortunate inhabitants of
Cappadocia at the partition of the province in A. D. 371. So Flavian of
Antioch, with better success, stood between his flock and the emperor,
not unjustly irritated by the riot of 387.
(7) Closely connected with episcopal intercession was the right of
asylum, transferred from heathen temples to Christian churches, which
afforded protection to fugitives, pending the interference of the bishops.
One out of many instances, and that the most romantic, is the case of the
miserable Eutropius (A. D. 399), who benefited by the privilege which he
had himself in the previous year sought to circumscribe.
Such are some of the points at which the Empire touched the Church.
The effect of the Church upon the Empire may be summed up in the
word “freedom. ” Obedience to authority was indeed required in every
department of public and private life, provided that it did not conflict
with religious duty. But the old despotic attributes were gradually
removed, the Roman patria potestas suffered notable relaxation, and
children were regarded no longer as a peculium but as "a sacred charge
upon which great care must be bestowed. ” In a word, authority was
seen to be a form of service, according to God's will, and such service
was freedom. This great principle found expression in many ways,
and first in respect of literal bondage. The better feeling of the
age was certainly already in favour of kindness towards the slave.
Stoicism, like Christianity, accepted slavery as a necessary institution,
more clearly discerned its baneful results than
Seneca. And Seneca was still listened to. It is in his words that
Praetextatus in Macrobius' Saturnalia pleads the slave's common
humanity, faithfulness, and goodness, against the old feeling of contempt
of which there were still traces in Christian and pagan writers. It was,
however, not from Seneca but from Christ and St Paul that the fathers
took their constant theme of the essential equality of men, before which
slavery cannot stand. Not only do they establish the primitive unity
but no
one
ever
## p. 593 (#623) ############################################
The Church and Society. Slavery. The Stage
593
VO
Sur
e o
an
To
5
and dignity of man, but, seeing in slavery a result of the Fall, they find
in the sacrifice of Christ a road to freedom that was closed to Stoicism.
They offered a more effective consolation than the philosophers, for they
pointed the slave upward by recognising his right to kneel beside his
master in the Lord's Supper. Close upon the Church's victory follows
legislation more favourable to the slave than any that had gone before.
Constantine did not attempt sudden or wholesale emancipation, which
would have been unwise and impossible. Nor is there any sign that
he recognised the slave's moral, intellectual, or religious needs. But
he sought to lessen his hardships by measures which with all their
inequalities are unique in the statute-book of Rome. He tried to
prevent the exposing of children, though he could not stop the enslave-
ment of foundlings; he forbad cruelty towards slaves in terms which
are themselves an indictment of existing practice; he forbad the breaking
up of servile families ; he declared emancipation to be “most desirable”;
he transferred the process of manumission from pagan to Christian
places of worship in a way and with words that testify to his view of it
as a work of love belonging properly to the Church. But the Church
was not content to influence the lawgiver and preach to master and
slave the brotherhood of man and the duties of forbearance and patience.
She struck at all the bad conditions that encouraged slavery.
The stage and the arena had always been the objects of her hate as
hotbeds of immorality and nurseries of unbelief. Attendance there
was forbidden to Christians as an act' of apostasy. Julian caught the
feeling and forbad his priests to enter theatres or taverns. Yet Libanius,
Julian's friend and mentor, defends not only comedy and tragedy but
even the dance, exalting it above sculpture as a school of beauty and a
lawful recreation. But dancing, as Chrysostom points out, was inseparable
from indecency and, far from giving the mind repose, only excites it
to base passions. The ban of the Church accordingly was proclaimed
against the ministers of these arts upon the public stage; it followed
them into private houses when they went to enliven wedding or banquet,
forbidding them baptism so long as they remained players. This
apparent harshness, which can be matched from civil legislation, was in
reality a kindness. The actor's state was at this time incompatible with
purity, and the Church sought to deliver a class enslaved to vice. А
notable victory was won when it was ruled that an actress who asked
for and received the last sacraments should not, if she recovered, be
dragged back to her hateful calling. The only way of escape from it
in any case lay in the acceptance of Christianity. As the theatre
gratified low tastes, so the arena stimulated tigerish instincts. Both
Pliny and Cicero apologised for it as being the proper playground of a
warrior race; it certainly held the Roman imagination. The story of
Alypius (a friend of Augustine) is well known, whom one reluctant
look during a gladiatorial show enslaved completely to the lust for blood.
C. MED. H. VOL. I. CH. XX.
38
## p. 594 (#624) ############################################
594
The Church and Society. Games. Luxury
Attempts to suppress the shows were made, doubtless under Christian
influence. They met with little response, except in the East, where the
better spirits (like Libanius) repudiated them as a Roman barbarity,
unworthy of a Greek. But the action of Constantine in forbidding
soldiers to take part in gladiatorial shows, and of Valentinian in
exempting Christians from suffering punishment in the arena, prove
that earlier regulations were a dead letter. The show which Alypius
attended was at Rome in A. D. 385. Symmachus as urban praefect speaks
with pride of the games he gave, and when the Saxon captives with
whom he had hoped to make a Roman holiday committed suicide in
prison he had to turn to Socrates and his example for consolation. The
sums spent on these games is an index to the wealth of noble Romans.
The same Symmachus spent £80,000 on the occasion of his son's
praetorship; a festival given in the reign of Honorius lasted a week and
cost £100,000. Ammianus Marcellinus and Jerome paint the same
picture, and even when their charges have been discounted by the more
sober pages of Macrobius, it is still clear that the dying Roman civilisa-
tion was marked by general luxury and self-indulgence. The Church could
not stop this waste; sumptuary laws lay outside her competence; but
leaders practised and encouraged simplicity and frugality and reproved the
tendency towards ecclesiastical display. Jerome meets the argument that
lavish hospitality would strengthen the hand of clerical intercessors by
answering that judges will honour holiness above wealth, and simple
clergy more than luxurious ones. “Golden mediocrity" doubtless had
its devotees. There were many Christian men of the world to whom
monasticism was a riddle, as it was to Ausonius, whose prayer was, “give
me neither poverty nor riches. ” But better than moderation was renun-
ciation of the world, and the ascetic element of early Christianity,
reinforced by the example of all exponents of high thought, led many to
turn their faces from the luxury around them and flee to the desert.
To those who remained behind the Christian writers tried to teach the
view of poverty as a probation and of wealth as a trust, the mutual depend-
ence of rich and poor, and the lesson that men should be one in heart as
they are one in origin-caritas qua in uno incommunicabili unum sumus.
They frequently recall the communion recorded in the Acts, and now that
change of conditions had rendered community of goods impossible, a new
means of applying the principle was sought, first in feasts of charity and
regular collections for the poor, in the private munificence of the bishop,
or in a proportionate and elaborately organised distribution, under the
bishop, of church revenues. These by dint of careful administration
and continual accessions grew to an immense property, till by the fifth
century the Church had become the greatest landowner in the Empire.
In general, promotion to a bishop's stool meant merely entry into a
large fortune. “Make me Bishop of Rome and I will become a Christian”
was Praetextatus' reply to Damasus, and it reflects the public opinion.
## p. 595 (#625) ############################################
The Church and Society. Charities
595
Ammianus Marcellinus waxes scornful over the episcopal splendour and
extravagance at Rome, but he qualifies or points his sarcasm by the
admission that there were bishops in the provinces who,“ moderate in
eating and drinking, simple in dress, shew themselves worthy priests
of the Deity. " Instances of fine and unselfish philanthropy are
equally common in the theory held by great churchmen and in their
practice?
Perhaps the most striking justification of the common claim that
bishops are the proper and recognised helpers and guardians of the poor,
the widow, and the orphan, is found in their readiness to convert the
communion plate into money for the distressed. “It is better to save
living souls than lifeless metals. . . the ornament of the sacraments is the
redemption of captives," are the words with which Ambrose defended
himself against the charge of sacrilege. Refuge from the tax-burthened
world was afforded by the monasteries, which are too often judged, not by
the circumstances which called them into being, but by the abuses which
attended their decay. And side by side with the strictly religious houses
there sprang up innumerable charitable institutions-orphanotrophia,
ptochotrophia, nosocomia, gerontocomia, brephotrophia_intended to
relieve the wants of every class and every age and not merely those of
citizens, as had been the case in heathen Rome and Athens.
Not the
least of the debts which the world owes to fourth century Christianity is
this invention of open hospitals. Julian felt its power and summoned
his followers to imitate in this respect the hated Galilaeans. But with
superior organisation the old spirit of voluntary charity waned.
Individual effort disappeared; a steward discharged the philanthropic
activities of the bishops; deaconesses waited less on the poor and more
on the worship of the Church. Charity became less discriminating and
aped the pagan largesses. Begging now finds a place in the statute-
book, and the first law against mendicancy was issued by a Christian
Emperor (Valentinian II)? . Yet the Church sought to meet this evil
also by restoring labour to honour. Slavery had degraded it, and
commerce had always been despised at Rome. Before the eyes of an
idle and unprofitable multitude was now displayed the example of
Christ and his apostles, workmen all, an example which was actually
followed in the monasteries where the “perfect” life joined prayer
with work, both to charitable purposes. The Pachomian houses,
as self-sufficing communities, provided regular work, not merely as
a penitential exercise, but as an integral part of the life. Basil would
have his ascetics despise no form of labour ; Augustine reproved African
monks who were deserting work for prayer. Sloth was assuredly no
1 Cf. Ambros. Ep. 3 contr. Symm. ; Aug. Ep. 50; Jerome, Ep. ad Pammach.
26; Greg. Nyss. Or. de paup. amand. ; Basil, Ep. 151; Socr. H. E. vii. 26; Soz.
H. E. . 16; Theodoret, Epp. 42–45; Conc. Sardica, c. viii. etc.
3 Cod. Just. lib. XI. tit. 26 de mendicantibus validis.
OH. XX.
38—2
## p. 596 (#626) ############################################
596
The Church and Society. Women
inmate of the cloister then, though the work done cannot be described
as always useful or rational.
But the efforts of Christianity in behalf of the weak are nowhere seen
more clearly than in the uplifting of women. The Church gave them a
place of consideration in her ministry, not however the privilege of
preaching or administering the sacraments, though a deaconess was allowed
to assist in the baptism of women. Besides the carefully regulated orders
of deaconesses, virgins, and widows, there arose towards the end of the
fourth century classes of widows and virgins of higher rank who gave
themselves to voluntary work under church auspices, without taking
regular vows or living in communities. Such were Jerome's friends and
correspondents, Paula and Eustochium. In the East, where this class
attained a position of greater prominence than in the West (the Roman
spirit was averse from the public ministry of women), they approximated
to an order and were finally assimilated to the deaconesses.
Outside the ministry of the Church women were made the subject of
special legislation. Constantine was austere in morals. The age was
loose. The antique ideal of the Roman nation had long since disappeared.
Constantine determined to restore it. The severity of his measures
against adultery and rape shews his zeal in the cause of morality,
while the terms of those which regulate the relations of women to the
courts exhibit his care for their good fame and the matris familiae
majestas. Thus to spare their modesty wives were forbidden to appear
in court at all. His tenderness is also seen in his forbidding a son to
disinherit his mother, and in the exemption of widows from the penalties
visited on coiners. On the other hand there are signs, both in contem-
porary legislation and literature, of unchristian and brutal contempt for
the women who had most need of protection. Tavern-keepers and barmaids
are set free from the operation of the laws against adultery, “ since
chaste conduct is only expected of those who are restrained by the bonds
of law, and immunity must be extended to those whose worthless life has
set them beyond the pale of the laws. ” Again, it is difficult to under-
stand the mind of Augustine, who loves his natural son Adeodatus as
David loved the child of Bathsheba, and who yet has regret, but no word
of pity, for the mother whom he cast off. So Sidonius Apollinaris, the
aristocratic bishop of Auvergne, is very lenient towards the irregularities of
a young noble, and quite heartless towards the victim. But in the latter
case it must be remembered that the Christianity of Sidonius was
not very deep, that the girl was a slave, and that for all their good inten-
tions and growing instincts of humanity the Church and churchmen did
not yet regard slaves as free; and in the former, that concubinage, i. e. the
association of one man with one woman, was recognised by Roman law
and by the Council of Toledo (A. D. 400) and hardly differed from
wedlock except in name. What is astonishing to modern notions in the
case of Augustine and his mistresses is not so much his own conduct as
## p. 597 (#627) ############################################
The Church and Society. Women
597
the line taken by his friends and the saintly Monnica, and too readily
adopted by himself. Something like a mariage de convenance was pro-
jected for him while he was still attached to a woman whom there is no
reason to suppose unworthy to become his wife, in the hope that as soon
as he was married he might be washed clean in saving baptism. Monnica
was indeed more concerned by his Manichaeism than by his irregular
life. The incident reveals a flaw in a great character. But if that were
all it would have no place here. It is of value to our purpose as illus-
trating the view of the relation between the sexes held at this time,
and as a witness to the vastness of the task that lay before the Church
in purifying and uplifting society.
a
CH. XX.
## p. 598 (#628) ############################################
598
CHAPTER XXI.
EARLY CHRISTIAN ART.
Nor many years ago Greek art seemed to be marked off from Roman,
and Roman from Early Christian by wide intervals. The art of Greece
was typified by the buildings of the Athenian Acropolis, Roman art by
those of the imperial Forum and the Palatine, and Christian art by the
catacombs. Unceasing exploration and fruitful discoveries have since
brought to light so many works of the transitional periods that art
history has become rather the account of a continuous process than
of clearly defined epochs and schools.
The art of Rome itself under the new light appears rather as one
of the many later Hellenistic schools, than as purely indigenous. Part
of the transition from Classical Greek may be traced in the art centres
of Asia Minor, and part, again, in the non-Roman city of Pompeii. As
to the latter, it is held that the sequences of style which have been
distinguished in its wall-paintings were probably fashions imported from
Alexandria. The covering of internal walls with thin slabs of rare
coloured-marbles and porphyries, and the incrustation of vaults with
mosaics of gilt and coloured glass, had the same origin.
This process of change in classical art carries us to some point in the
early centuries of Christianity, and many groups of facts shew that it
was long continued. Not only did Egypt and the East export their
porphyry, ivory, glass, bronze and textiles, but craftsmen were drawn to
the Roman capital from every Hellenistic city.
The works used or made by the Early Christians could at first have
been differentiated in no obvious way from the current classical works
of the time. When anything emerges which we can entitle Christian Art,
the change is, for the most part, manifest in a new spirit dealing with
old forms. The art was necessarily shaped externally by the modes and
codes of expression of the time. In many cases new ideas were expressed
under old forms ; thus the winged angel derives from the antique Victory;
the nimbus is classical as well as Christian; the story of Orpheus is
interpreted as a type of Christ; and Amor and Psyche are adopted as
symbols of the Divine Love and the soul.
## p. 599 (#629) ############################################
The Catacombs
599
In so far as there was novelty it is clear that, as Christianity itself
was from the East, so the changed forms must themselves have held in
them much that was oriental. Early Christian art is Roman art in the
widest sense, purified, orientalised, and informed with a new and epical
content which held as seed the possibilities of the mighty cycle of
Byzantine and Medieval art.
It is still in Rome and in the catacombs that the best connected series
of works of the first three or four centuries of this early art is found.
The great roads of approach to Rome were lined by countless tombs
of every degree of magnificence: rotundas, pyramids, cellae, and sarco-
phagi. Amongst them stood vestibules to underground tomb-chambers
where large numbers were buried in common. Along their walls, tier
upon tier, urns of ashes were packed like vases in a museum. The Jews
and other oriental peoples followed the custom of burying the unburnt
body in subterranean galleries, and appropriate sites for these also were
obtained round about Rome. The Christians, following the same usage,
at first shared such catacombs, and in other cases formed groups of their
own. The catacombs were primarily not places of hiding, however much
they may have been so used. Frequently there was a space above
ground planted as a garden, and made use of as a cemetery. In some
were small burial chapels from which access was obtained to the catacombs
beneath. The ruins of two or three such chapels have been discovered
and described. They agree in having had a central apse and two lateral
apses grouped together at one end.
There were also subterranean chapels, the most famous of which is
the Capella Graeca of the Catacomb of Priscilla. It has, roughly, the
form of a small nave or body, 8 by 25 ft. , ended by an apse with lateral
apses on each side of it. It opens from a long vaulted apartment
or atrium. The walls are decorated with paintings of the usual
subjects—Daniel, and Lazarus, Moses, Susannah, and the Adoration of
the Magi. On the vault over the nave are four heads representing the
Above the central apse is represented the Eucharistic repast.
This recently-discovered Fractio Panis is not only one of the most
interesting, it is also one of the most beautiful of the catacomb paint-
ings, as may be seen in the large photogravure published by Wilpert.
The forms and features of the seven participants are classic and gracious.
It is painted in a masterly way in a few simple colours on a vermilion
ground. The inscriptions on the walls are in Greek, hence the name of
the chapel. In the apse was an altar-tomb. It belongs to the second
century
Another catacomb church is probably of the third century, and a
third, the largest, in the catacomb of St Hermes is probably of the
fourth. The catacombs themselves are complexes of subterranean passages
and galleries excavated for the disposal of the dead, who rested one above
another along the sides. The chambers, more or less square, were
seasons.
CH. XXI.
## p. 600 (#630) ############################################
600
Christian Paintings
a
roughly vaulted above, and the vaults and walls were for the most part
decorated with painting, and occasionally with stucco reliefs. This
ornamentation was a branch of the ordinary house and tomb decorator's
work of the time, and the painted subjects were clearly executed with
the swift mastery which came of long practice in repeating a limited
stock of ideas. The vaulted ceilings were usually decorated by some
geometrical arrangement of panels, radiating from the centre and bounded
by a large circle. In these panels were little figures, groups, birds and
foliage. The colours were reds, greens and ochres and a little blue, the
whole mellow yet bright.
The subjects of these paintings have been most thoroughly illustrated,
and their chronology analysed, in Wilpert's large work. Under the first
century he groups several schemes of vault decoration in which the
motives consist of the geometrical division of the field, and of little
putti and foliage. One vault is entirely covered with a branching vine.
On others of the same century are landscapes and burial feasts, while
the cycle of Biblical subjects begins with Daniel standing between two
lions, and the Good Shepherd. To the second century he assigns vaults
on which appear the Three Children in the furnace, Moses striking the
rock, the Eucharist, Noah and the Ark, scenes from the story of Jonah,
and subjects from the life and miracles of Christ; the raising of Lazarus,
the cure of the paralytic, the cure of the woman, and the meeting with
the Samaritan. The most noticeable and beautiful is in the cemetery of
Priscilla, and represents the seated Virgin and Child, with a prophet
standing by, and a star or the sun above. This is a small group at the
side of a central composition of the Good Shepherd, from which it is
divided by a flowering tree. This central subject and the trees on either
hand of it were roughly modelled in the plaster before colouring. The
modelling of the tree is but a few swift marks of the tool defining the
trunk, and the leaves and flowers are painted. The Virgin and Child
are beautifully drawn with some remaining tradition of classical feeling.
The figures are only about a foot high, and unhappily the lower part
is much injured. The whole is very like a sketch by Watts. Belonging
to this century are two or three versions of the Baptism. Another
subject is the mocking of Christ; others are symbolical, a ship in a
storm, Orpheus charming the beasts, and orantes who represent souls
rather than persons. One beautiful vault is decorated by a series of
bands, on the lowest of which, on the four sides, are four typical
occupations of the seasons-picking Aowers, cutting corn, the vintage,
and gathering olives—while the upper bands are ornamented successively
with pattern-work of roses, corn, vine, and olive.
Amongst the third century paintings may be noticed Christ enthroned,
the Virgin and the Magi, and Amor and Psyche gathering flowers. In
the fourth century Christ is represented enthroned amidst the twelve
apostles, as in the apses of the early basilicas. In the fifth century the
## p. 601 (#631) ############################################
Sculpture
601
treatment of the figures becomes more rigid and hieratic, while their
costumes are much bejewelled, in a manner distinctly Byzantine. There
is little in the catacomb paintings which has peculiar application to the
grave. The raising of Lazarus or Daniel between the lions belong to a
series of “deliverance” subjects which were in general use in all forms of
“
Early Christian art; when we come to the fourth and fifth centuries
the decoration resembles that which we are accustomed to in the churches
of those centuries, and the decoration of the earlier catacombs would
have been equally according to the general custom of the time when
they were built. That is, the pre-Constantinian churches and earlier
domestic oratories must have been painted in like fashion with the cata-
combs. The ideas underlying the choice of subjects are of resurrection
and salvation, thoughts which are further expressed in the simple epitaphs,
which speak of hope, peace, and eternal welfare. Some of the subjects
chosen have, indeed, been compared with the ancient prayers for the
dying, “ Deliver, O Lord, Thy servant as Thou didst deliver Enoch and
Elias from the common death, as Thou didst deliver Noah from the
Deluge, Job from his torments, Isaac from the Sacrifice, Moses from the
hand of Pharaoh, Daniel from the lions, the three young men from the
furnace, and Susannah from false accusation. . . . So deign to deliver the
soul of Thy servant. ”
The orantes, who were figured with extended arms amidst such
scenes, are types of supplication. They are generally feminine, and are
symbols of the soul in prayer. Thus understood they go far to explain
the scope and meaning of the art of the catacombs.
There is little sculpture in the round extant from our period, but
it is almost surprising that there is any. The examples are three or four
figures of the Good Shepherd bearing the lamb on His shoulder. The
most perfect of these, in the Lateran Museum, is a sweet pastoral figure.
They have been compared with statues of Hermes bearing the ram.
The composition is clearly derived, but the sentiment is very different.
As usual, the Christians were using old symbols in a new spirit.
The early sarcophagi furnish us with a series of relief sculptures
parallel in extent and interest to the paintings of the catacombs. Some
are so little differentiated from late classical art that it is hardly possible
to
say whether they are indeed Christian. Others have quite a collection
of the usual triumph subjects which appear in the catacombs as paintings.
The most noteworthy of all of them is a fragment, now in the Berlin
Museum, which was lately brought from Constantinople. On it appear
Christ and two apostles, standing in niches, separated by columns.
Christ is unbearded and the head has a cruciform nimbus. The figures,
which are about four feet high, are draped in a dignified style like
classical statues of philosophers. This remarkable work has the closest
relation of style with the series of late antique sarcophagi, one of which
is in the Mausoleum Room of the British Museum, another in the Cook
CH. XXI.
## p. 602 (#632) ############################################
602
Engraved Gems
Collection at Richmond. The Berlin relief probably belongs to the
third century, and had its origin at Constantinople or in Asia Minor.
Another famous sarcophagus is that of Junius Bassus, praefect of
Rome, who died in 359. It has several scenes sculptured on it, amongst
which are, Christ enthroned, the Entry into Jerusalem, Christ brought
before Pilate, and Pilate washing his hands; also Adam and Eve,
Daniel, etc. The sculptures are in panels divided by columns, some of
which are covered with scrolls of foliage among which climb amorini.
This ornamentation is noteworthy, as the columns thus decorated resemble
the celebrated sculptured columns at St Peter's which are usually thought
to be antique. These columns formed a screen in front of the altar of
Constantine's basilica ; they were saved, and re-used in the new church.
The motive of Cupids climbing amidst vines is also found on the mosaics
of Santa Costanza (c. 360) and on many tombs.
Two more most famous sarcophagi must be spoken of— those of the
Empress Helena and of Santa Costanza. Both are of royal porphyry
with sculptures in high relief, and they are now in the Vatican. That
of the Empress is sculptured with a military triumph, that of Costanza
with amorini and the vintage, peacocks and lambs. With the latter
Strzygowski has lately compared fragments of other porphyry sarco-
phagi at Constantinople and Alexandria, and has shewn that they must
all have come from Egypt, the land of the porphyry-quarries and the
place of origin of other porphyry sculptures such as the well-known group
at the south-west corner of St Mark's, Venice.
A class of objects which dates from the time of the catacombs, if
not from the apostolic age, is that of engraved gems. Of these the
British Museum has a good representative collection.
“ The use of
rings as signets or ornaments was as widely spread among the early
Christians as among their Pagan contemporaries. St James speaks of the
man who wears a gold ring and goodly apparel, and the Fathers of the
Church were obliged to reprimand the community for extravagance in this
respect. ” The devices engraved on these gems are for the most part of
a simple symbolic character as befits the small field which they occupy.
In the British Museum collection we have anchors and fish, doves and
trees, sheep, branches of olive and palm, shepherds' crooks, ships, sacred
monograms, the word IXOYC, and the inscription Vivas in Deo.
God's goodness and justice. Goodness required that man should be
delivered from the bondage of misery; justice required something more
than mere repentance in order to effect that deliverance, nothing less
than the offering up of the human nature which contained the sinful
principle. This was achieved by Him who assumed human nature and
represented man. Thus far Athanasius. Augustine, who is equally
insistent on the fact of the sacrifice of Christ, goes deeper than
Athanasius into the reason for the particular form that it took and
the effects that it wrought. He shares Athanasius' admiration of the
divine goodness exhibited in the long-suffering of God and the
voluntary humility of the God-man ; he is even more jealous for the
divine justice. It was just that Satan who had acquired right over
the race should be satisfied in respect of his claims. But Satan took
more than his due, slaying the innocent. It was therefore just that he
should be forced to relinquish the sinners in behalf of whom the sinless
suffered.
The controversy concerning Free Will and Grace also affected the
idea of the Church and sacraments. Until the rise of Pelagianism a very
wide scope was allowed here to Free Will. The Grace conveyed by the
sacraments, which were not to be had outside the Church, was considered
1 The idea of satisfactio per poenam so often ascribed to the Latin fathers is
altogether foreign to Roman Law and belongs to the sphere of Germanic institutions.
In Roman Law the alternative is solvere satisve facere.
CH. XX.
## p. 588 (#618) ############################################
588
The Church
to be conditioned by the faith and life of the recipient. It was tacitly
assumed that these factors were within the control of the will. That is
to say, Grace preceded Election. This, according to Augustine's mind
matured by reflection and controversy, was an inversion of the truth.
His theory of Predestination demanded that Election should precede
Grace. And thus side by side with his practical belief in an external
society in which good and bad, wheat and tares, were growing together, par-
taking of the means of grace, i. e. the visible church, he conceived the novel
idea of a spiritual society of elect, the communion of saints, the invisible
church, whose members were known to God alone, whether they were
within the fold of the external society or not. Of this body it might
be affirmed without a trace of bigotry, extra ecclesiam nulla salus. The
two conceptions are not kept strictly apart, and the characteristics of the
invisible church are constantly transferred by Augustine to the visible
church. This body, whose growing nucleus is thus supplied by the
invisible church, is the civitas Dei on earth. Over against it stands the
civitas terrena, the earthly polity. The two states, separate in idea,
origin, purpose, and practice, are yet dependent the one on the other,
giving and taking influence. The civitas Dei needs the practical support
of the civitas terrena in order to be a visible state. The civitas terrena
needs the moral support of the civitas Dei in order to be a real state,
for a civitas only exists on a basis of love and justice and by participation
in the sole source of existence, which is God. The city of God is the
only real civitas, gradually absorbing the civitas terrena and borrowing
its authority and power in order to carry out the divine purpose.
Magistrate and legislator become the sons and servants of the church,
bound to execute the church's objects. We have here the germ of the
medieval theory of the church as the kingdom of God on earth, but it
must be noted that Augustine does not start with the assumption of
identity, does not use church and kingdom of God as interchangeable
terms, despite the assertion ecclesia iam nunc est regnum, which he is the
first of Christian writers to make. Even in this phrase he does not
mean that the church is actually the kingdom, but only that it is so
potentially. The full and perfect realisation he reserves until the con-
summation of all things.
From the earliest days of Christianity the words sacrament and
mystery were borrowed to denote any sacred secret thing, and especially the
means of grace. The number of these was not distinctly specified, for
Christians, believing that the Church was the store-house of unlimited
grace, were not careful to count the means. Two however stood out
pre-eminent, Baptism and the Lord's Supper. With regard to the
doctrine underlying these two, it may be said that it was in the fourth
and fifth centuries essentially what it had been before. No doubt
Christian experience and the struggle with paganism and heresy tended
to produce explanations, but the main thought was always simply that
## p. 589 (#619) ############################################
The Sacraments
589
a
of life bestowed and life maintained. The early believers had not
asked how, but the question could not but arise, and that rather in
connexion with the Eucharist than with Baptism. For the water of
Baptism did not invite speculation to the same degree as did the bread
and wine, and their relation to the Body and Blood of Christ. Not that
Baptism was ever regarded merely as a ceremony of initiation ; it was
the fear of losing, through post-baptismal sin, the grace conveyed by
Baptism that in our period kept many from the font. Other causes such
as negligence, reluctance to forgo the world, and various fancies and
superstitions, combined to render Baptism, as in Constantine's case, the
completion rather than the commencement of Christian life. Such delay
was not the intention of the Church, and the necessity of checking slackness,
together with the Western doctrine of prevenient grace helping the first
step Godward, brought about a strict insistence on the necessity of Baptism
and a readiness, in the West at least, to allow the Baptism of heretics,
provided the right form of words was used. But both wisdom and
generosity were shewn by the refusal to tie down the operation of the Holy
Spirit to ritual action, and by the admission of faith, repentance, or martyr-
dom, as substitutes for formal Baptism when this could not be had. It
must not be forgotten however that Augustine, when he found the
Donatists proof against persuasion, advocated a resort to violence—coge
intrare.
The Eucharist was more obviously mysterious, and at a time when the
rite was attended by many who were more conscious of its mysterious
experience than of any effect it might have upon life, speculation was active,
and teachers laboured to assist inquiry by analogy and illustration which
often grew to something more. Thus from Gregory of Nyssa came an
impulse which finally developed into the doctrine of transubstantiation.
Not that Gregory means to teach this; the passage in his works containing
the germ is not a definition. His style is highly imaginative and the Oratio
catechetica is full of similes. One of these is borrowed, but without
hesitation, from physiology. Gregory draws a parallel between the
change of bread and wine, by digestion, into the human body, and the
change of the sacramental elements, by consecration, into Christ's
immortal body. Using Aristotelian terms, he says that in each case the
constituents are arranged under a fresh form. This is not transub-
stantiation but transelementation (METAOTOIXEiwors). The image
commended itself, and it was repeated and elaborated by other writers
until at length the complete identification of the bread and wine with
the Body and Blood of Christ became the authoritative doctrine of the
Eastern Church. The Roman doctrine of transubstantiation has points
of resemblance with Gregory's illustration, but it is expressed in terms of
a different and later philosophy. Gregory teaches a change of form ;
the schoolmen, a change of both material and form, which they explain
by the help of the distinction between substantia and accidentia. The
CH, XX.
## p. 590 (#620) ############################################
590
The Empire and the Church. Organisation
great contribution of the age to the doctrine of the Sacraments is the
view that in a real sense they continue the process of the Incarnation.
Human nature first became divine in the person of Christ by union with
the divine Word, and subsequently and repeatedly in the person of the
individual believer through union with Christ in the Sacraments. This
is the teaching of both East and West as represented by Hilary and
Gregory of Nyssa. As in Baptism the soul is joined to Christ through
faith, so in the Eucharist is the body, being transformed by the Eucharistic
food, joined with the Body of the Lord. Thus the special purpose of the
Incarnation, viz. the deification of man, is being constantly fulfilled.
The language in which this noble conception is expressed, especially in
the East, tends to encourage a superstitious reverence for the outward
symbols, which the Greek fathers frequently have occasion to correct.
Augustine earnestly desired that the civitas terrena should help to
establish the civitas Dei, and that the civitas Dei should leaven with
moral influence the civitas terrena. It remains for us to see how far
his dream was realised, in other words how far the Christian Empire
affected the Church and was in turn affected by it.
The influence of the Empire upon the internal and external structure
of the Church had been felt from the first. Thus, the development of the
monarchical episcopate was doubtless due in great measure to the example
of Roman law, which required all corporate bodies to have a representative.
The mark of Roman law is also seen in the Western doctrines of Free
Will, Sin and its transmission, and Atonement. The language in which
these problems are stated is the phraseology of the courts, and recalls
the Roman penal code, theory of contract and delict, debt, universal
succession, etc.
The effect of civil order is seen in certain pieces of church adminis-
tration which though themselves practical are the expression of under-
lying theory, and therefore call for notice here.
(1) The Church was organised in “dioceses” (with exarchs or
patriarchs), provinces (with metropolitans or primates), and cities (with
bishops), much in the manner of the Empire. This arrangement was not
directly imposed upon the Church by the Empire nor did it exactly
correspond to the imperial distribution. But the sudden rise of the
see of Byzantium from a subordinate position into the next place of
honour after Rome proves that civil importance was a factor in deter-
mining ecclesiastical precedence.
(2) The bargain proposed by Nestorius to Theodosius II, “Give me
the world free from heretics and I will give thee heaven,” was in a fair
way of fulfilment. The emperors from being foes became powerful friends
to the Church, able to give the material support that Augustine desired.
Constantine would no doubt gladly have enjoyed the same controlling
relation towards his adopted religion as he held towards the religion of
which he and his successors till Valens remained chief pontiffs. But the
## p. 591 (#621) ############################################
The Empire and the Church. Taxation and property 591
ahurch was too strong for that, and the rescript of A. D. 314, in which he
declared that the sentence of the bishops must be regarded as that of
Christ Himself, shews what their power was, and hints what they might
have done with it. Still, he was allowed to style himself (perhaps in
jest) et LO KOTOS TV &KTÒs, and he set the example of convoking general
councils, the decrees of which were published under imperial authority
and thus acquired a political importance. Those only who accepted
their rulings could enjoy the rights of state favour, and civil penalties
were presently threatened in the interest of civic peace against all
who declined to acknowledge them.
(3) Pagan teachers, priests and doctors were already exempt from
certain civil charges on the ground of professional usefulness. To this
list Constantine added first the African, and later all Christian, clergy;
and them he allowed to engage in trade untaxed because they could give
their profits to the poor. Clerical families and property were likewise
excused all the ordinary responsibilities of curiales. Many citizens sought
this immunity from taxation, even after the State, fearing the loss of
useful service, had forbidden the ordination of curials; and the Church
came to welcome the exclusion of the well-to-do from her ministry as a
protection against unworthy ministers, as she also did the removal of
exemption from trade-taxes, for the age was averse from any interference
with the spiritual duties of the clergy. But the fact that privileges
were withdrawn from the heathen priesthood and bestowed on the
clergy enhanced the position of the latter as a favoured class.
(4) The Church was distinguished as a corporation capable of
receiving donations and bequests. Earlier confiscations and restorations
prove that the Church had held property long before the time of
Constantine. But Constantine bestowed upon it a more extensive privilege
than was known to any heathen religious foundation. Whereas the
latter could only be endowed under special circumstances, and, with few
exceptions, never acquired the right to receive bequests, “the sacred
and venerable Christian churches” might be left anything by anybody.
Abuse of the privilege gradually led to its withdrawal under Valentinian
III, and Christian writers deplore the cause more keenly than the result;
but the growing wealth was as a rule generously applied to philanthropic
work started by the Church, and Augustine was justified in calling upon
churchmen to remember Christ as well as their sons. They were the
more likely to listen, since the old Jewish belief that alms win heaven
had taken root and sprung up in the doctrine of merit.
(5) The Church secured another prerogative, which was fraught
with serious consequences, in the establishment of episcopal courts as an
integral part of the secular judicial system with final jurisdiction in civil
cases. But it had analogy with the Roman institution of recepti arbitri,
an extrajudicial arrangement allowing the civil authority to step in and
enforce the decision of the arbitrator. At a time when, as we learn from
CH. XX.
## p. 592 (#622) ############################################
592
The Empire and the Church. Justice
Salvian and Ammianus, the courts were monuments of justice delay
and of chicanery, it was no small boon to be allowed to carry a civil sus
to the arbitration of a bishop whose equitable decision had the force o
law. The early history of this remarkable legislation is obscure an.
complicated, but it clearly contained in germ the clerical exemption froi
criminal procedure which formed one of the most difficult problems . n
medieval politics. The episcopal jurisdiction underwent considerable
limitations and bishops lost their position of privilege before the liw;
but appeal to the episcopal court became a tradition in the Church.
(6) There are other indications of the great influence acquired by
bishops in the administration of justice. Into their hands passed the
right of intercession formerly exercised in behalf of clients by wealthy
patrons or hired rhetoricians. One of their duties, according to Ambrose,
was to rescue the condemned from death, and he himself was active in
its discharge. So Basil interceded for the unfortunate inhabitants of
Cappadocia at the partition of the province in A. D. 371. So Flavian of
Antioch, with better success, stood between his flock and the emperor,
not unjustly irritated by the riot of 387.
(7) Closely connected with episcopal intercession was the right of
asylum, transferred from heathen temples to Christian churches, which
afforded protection to fugitives, pending the interference of the bishops.
One out of many instances, and that the most romantic, is the case of the
miserable Eutropius (A. D. 399), who benefited by the privilege which he
had himself in the previous year sought to circumscribe.
Such are some of the points at which the Empire touched the Church.
The effect of the Church upon the Empire may be summed up in the
word “freedom. ” Obedience to authority was indeed required in every
department of public and private life, provided that it did not conflict
with religious duty. But the old despotic attributes were gradually
removed, the Roman patria potestas suffered notable relaxation, and
children were regarded no longer as a peculium but as "a sacred charge
upon which great care must be bestowed. ” In a word, authority was
seen to be a form of service, according to God's will, and such service
was freedom. This great principle found expression in many ways,
and first in respect of literal bondage. The better feeling of the
age was certainly already in favour of kindness towards the slave.
Stoicism, like Christianity, accepted slavery as a necessary institution,
more clearly discerned its baneful results than
Seneca. And Seneca was still listened to. It is in his words that
Praetextatus in Macrobius' Saturnalia pleads the slave's common
humanity, faithfulness, and goodness, against the old feeling of contempt
of which there were still traces in Christian and pagan writers. It was,
however, not from Seneca but from Christ and St Paul that the fathers
took their constant theme of the essential equality of men, before which
slavery cannot stand. Not only do they establish the primitive unity
but no
one
ever
## p. 593 (#623) ############################################
The Church and Society. Slavery. The Stage
593
VO
Sur
e o
an
To
5
and dignity of man, but, seeing in slavery a result of the Fall, they find
in the sacrifice of Christ a road to freedom that was closed to Stoicism.
They offered a more effective consolation than the philosophers, for they
pointed the slave upward by recognising his right to kneel beside his
master in the Lord's Supper. Close upon the Church's victory follows
legislation more favourable to the slave than any that had gone before.
Constantine did not attempt sudden or wholesale emancipation, which
would have been unwise and impossible. Nor is there any sign that
he recognised the slave's moral, intellectual, or religious needs. But
he sought to lessen his hardships by measures which with all their
inequalities are unique in the statute-book of Rome. He tried to
prevent the exposing of children, though he could not stop the enslave-
ment of foundlings; he forbad cruelty towards slaves in terms which
are themselves an indictment of existing practice; he forbad the breaking
up of servile families ; he declared emancipation to be “most desirable”;
he transferred the process of manumission from pagan to Christian
places of worship in a way and with words that testify to his view of it
as a work of love belonging properly to the Church. But the Church
was not content to influence the lawgiver and preach to master and
slave the brotherhood of man and the duties of forbearance and patience.
She struck at all the bad conditions that encouraged slavery.
The stage and the arena had always been the objects of her hate as
hotbeds of immorality and nurseries of unbelief. Attendance there
was forbidden to Christians as an act' of apostasy. Julian caught the
feeling and forbad his priests to enter theatres or taverns. Yet Libanius,
Julian's friend and mentor, defends not only comedy and tragedy but
even the dance, exalting it above sculpture as a school of beauty and a
lawful recreation. But dancing, as Chrysostom points out, was inseparable
from indecency and, far from giving the mind repose, only excites it
to base passions. The ban of the Church accordingly was proclaimed
against the ministers of these arts upon the public stage; it followed
them into private houses when they went to enliven wedding or banquet,
forbidding them baptism so long as they remained players. This
apparent harshness, which can be matched from civil legislation, was in
reality a kindness. The actor's state was at this time incompatible with
purity, and the Church sought to deliver a class enslaved to vice. А
notable victory was won when it was ruled that an actress who asked
for and received the last sacraments should not, if she recovered, be
dragged back to her hateful calling. The only way of escape from it
in any case lay in the acceptance of Christianity. As the theatre
gratified low tastes, so the arena stimulated tigerish instincts. Both
Pliny and Cicero apologised for it as being the proper playground of a
warrior race; it certainly held the Roman imagination. The story of
Alypius (a friend of Augustine) is well known, whom one reluctant
look during a gladiatorial show enslaved completely to the lust for blood.
C. MED. H. VOL. I. CH. XX.
38
## p. 594 (#624) ############################################
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The Church and Society. Games. Luxury
Attempts to suppress the shows were made, doubtless under Christian
influence. They met with little response, except in the East, where the
better spirits (like Libanius) repudiated them as a Roman barbarity,
unworthy of a Greek. But the action of Constantine in forbidding
soldiers to take part in gladiatorial shows, and of Valentinian in
exempting Christians from suffering punishment in the arena, prove
that earlier regulations were a dead letter. The show which Alypius
attended was at Rome in A. D. 385. Symmachus as urban praefect speaks
with pride of the games he gave, and when the Saxon captives with
whom he had hoped to make a Roman holiday committed suicide in
prison he had to turn to Socrates and his example for consolation. The
sums spent on these games is an index to the wealth of noble Romans.
The same Symmachus spent £80,000 on the occasion of his son's
praetorship; a festival given in the reign of Honorius lasted a week and
cost £100,000. Ammianus Marcellinus and Jerome paint the same
picture, and even when their charges have been discounted by the more
sober pages of Macrobius, it is still clear that the dying Roman civilisa-
tion was marked by general luxury and self-indulgence. The Church could
not stop this waste; sumptuary laws lay outside her competence; but
leaders practised and encouraged simplicity and frugality and reproved the
tendency towards ecclesiastical display. Jerome meets the argument that
lavish hospitality would strengthen the hand of clerical intercessors by
answering that judges will honour holiness above wealth, and simple
clergy more than luxurious ones. “Golden mediocrity" doubtless had
its devotees. There were many Christian men of the world to whom
monasticism was a riddle, as it was to Ausonius, whose prayer was, “give
me neither poverty nor riches. ” But better than moderation was renun-
ciation of the world, and the ascetic element of early Christianity,
reinforced by the example of all exponents of high thought, led many to
turn their faces from the luxury around them and flee to the desert.
To those who remained behind the Christian writers tried to teach the
view of poverty as a probation and of wealth as a trust, the mutual depend-
ence of rich and poor, and the lesson that men should be one in heart as
they are one in origin-caritas qua in uno incommunicabili unum sumus.
They frequently recall the communion recorded in the Acts, and now that
change of conditions had rendered community of goods impossible, a new
means of applying the principle was sought, first in feasts of charity and
regular collections for the poor, in the private munificence of the bishop,
or in a proportionate and elaborately organised distribution, under the
bishop, of church revenues. These by dint of careful administration
and continual accessions grew to an immense property, till by the fifth
century the Church had become the greatest landowner in the Empire.
In general, promotion to a bishop's stool meant merely entry into a
large fortune. “Make me Bishop of Rome and I will become a Christian”
was Praetextatus' reply to Damasus, and it reflects the public opinion.
## p. 595 (#625) ############################################
The Church and Society. Charities
595
Ammianus Marcellinus waxes scornful over the episcopal splendour and
extravagance at Rome, but he qualifies or points his sarcasm by the
admission that there were bishops in the provinces who,“ moderate in
eating and drinking, simple in dress, shew themselves worthy priests
of the Deity. " Instances of fine and unselfish philanthropy are
equally common in the theory held by great churchmen and in their
practice?
Perhaps the most striking justification of the common claim that
bishops are the proper and recognised helpers and guardians of the poor,
the widow, and the orphan, is found in their readiness to convert the
communion plate into money for the distressed. “It is better to save
living souls than lifeless metals. . . the ornament of the sacraments is the
redemption of captives," are the words with which Ambrose defended
himself against the charge of sacrilege. Refuge from the tax-burthened
world was afforded by the monasteries, which are too often judged, not by
the circumstances which called them into being, but by the abuses which
attended their decay. And side by side with the strictly religious houses
there sprang up innumerable charitable institutions-orphanotrophia,
ptochotrophia, nosocomia, gerontocomia, brephotrophia_intended to
relieve the wants of every class and every age and not merely those of
citizens, as had been the case in heathen Rome and Athens.
Not the
least of the debts which the world owes to fourth century Christianity is
this invention of open hospitals. Julian felt its power and summoned
his followers to imitate in this respect the hated Galilaeans. But with
superior organisation the old spirit of voluntary charity waned.
Individual effort disappeared; a steward discharged the philanthropic
activities of the bishops; deaconesses waited less on the poor and more
on the worship of the Church. Charity became less discriminating and
aped the pagan largesses. Begging now finds a place in the statute-
book, and the first law against mendicancy was issued by a Christian
Emperor (Valentinian II)? . Yet the Church sought to meet this evil
also by restoring labour to honour. Slavery had degraded it, and
commerce had always been despised at Rome. Before the eyes of an
idle and unprofitable multitude was now displayed the example of
Christ and his apostles, workmen all, an example which was actually
followed in the monasteries where the “perfect” life joined prayer
with work, both to charitable purposes. The Pachomian houses,
as self-sufficing communities, provided regular work, not merely as
a penitential exercise, but as an integral part of the life. Basil would
have his ascetics despise no form of labour ; Augustine reproved African
monks who were deserting work for prayer. Sloth was assuredly no
1 Cf. Ambros. Ep. 3 contr. Symm. ; Aug. Ep. 50; Jerome, Ep. ad Pammach.
26; Greg. Nyss. Or. de paup. amand. ; Basil, Ep. 151; Socr. H. E. vii. 26; Soz.
H. E. . 16; Theodoret, Epp. 42–45; Conc. Sardica, c. viii. etc.
3 Cod. Just. lib. XI. tit. 26 de mendicantibus validis.
OH. XX.
38—2
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The Church and Society. Women
inmate of the cloister then, though the work done cannot be described
as always useful or rational.
But the efforts of Christianity in behalf of the weak are nowhere seen
more clearly than in the uplifting of women. The Church gave them a
place of consideration in her ministry, not however the privilege of
preaching or administering the sacraments, though a deaconess was allowed
to assist in the baptism of women. Besides the carefully regulated orders
of deaconesses, virgins, and widows, there arose towards the end of the
fourth century classes of widows and virgins of higher rank who gave
themselves to voluntary work under church auspices, without taking
regular vows or living in communities. Such were Jerome's friends and
correspondents, Paula and Eustochium. In the East, where this class
attained a position of greater prominence than in the West (the Roman
spirit was averse from the public ministry of women), they approximated
to an order and were finally assimilated to the deaconesses.
Outside the ministry of the Church women were made the subject of
special legislation. Constantine was austere in morals. The age was
loose. The antique ideal of the Roman nation had long since disappeared.
Constantine determined to restore it. The severity of his measures
against adultery and rape shews his zeal in the cause of morality,
while the terms of those which regulate the relations of women to the
courts exhibit his care for their good fame and the matris familiae
majestas. Thus to spare their modesty wives were forbidden to appear
in court at all. His tenderness is also seen in his forbidding a son to
disinherit his mother, and in the exemption of widows from the penalties
visited on coiners. On the other hand there are signs, both in contem-
porary legislation and literature, of unchristian and brutal contempt for
the women who had most need of protection. Tavern-keepers and barmaids
are set free from the operation of the laws against adultery, “ since
chaste conduct is only expected of those who are restrained by the bonds
of law, and immunity must be extended to those whose worthless life has
set them beyond the pale of the laws. ” Again, it is difficult to under-
stand the mind of Augustine, who loves his natural son Adeodatus as
David loved the child of Bathsheba, and who yet has regret, but no word
of pity, for the mother whom he cast off. So Sidonius Apollinaris, the
aristocratic bishop of Auvergne, is very lenient towards the irregularities of
a young noble, and quite heartless towards the victim. But in the latter
case it must be remembered that the Christianity of Sidonius was
not very deep, that the girl was a slave, and that for all their good inten-
tions and growing instincts of humanity the Church and churchmen did
not yet regard slaves as free; and in the former, that concubinage, i. e. the
association of one man with one woman, was recognised by Roman law
and by the Council of Toledo (A. D. 400) and hardly differed from
wedlock except in name. What is astonishing to modern notions in the
case of Augustine and his mistresses is not so much his own conduct as
## p. 597 (#627) ############################################
The Church and Society. Women
597
the line taken by his friends and the saintly Monnica, and too readily
adopted by himself. Something like a mariage de convenance was pro-
jected for him while he was still attached to a woman whom there is no
reason to suppose unworthy to become his wife, in the hope that as soon
as he was married he might be washed clean in saving baptism. Monnica
was indeed more concerned by his Manichaeism than by his irregular
life. The incident reveals a flaw in a great character. But if that were
all it would have no place here. It is of value to our purpose as illus-
trating the view of the relation between the sexes held at this time,
and as a witness to the vastness of the task that lay before the Church
in purifying and uplifting society.
a
CH. XX.
## p. 598 (#628) ############################################
598
CHAPTER XXI.
EARLY CHRISTIAN ART.
Nor many years ago Greek art seemed to be marked off from Roman,
and Roman from Early Christian by wide intervals. The art of Greece
was typified by the buildings of the Athenian Acropolis, Roman art by
those of the imperial Forum and the Palatine, and Christian art by the
catacombs. Unceasing exploration and fruitful discoveries have since
brought to light so many works of the transitional periods that art
history has become rather the account of a continuous process than
of clearly defined epochs and schools.
The art of Rome itself under the new light appears rather as one
of the many later Hellenistic schools, than as purely indigenous. Part
of the transition from Classical Greek may be traced in the art centres
of Asia Minor, and part, again, in the non-Roman city of Pompeii. As
to the latter, it is held that the sequences of style which have been
distinguished in its wall-paintings were probably fashions imported from
Alexandria. The covering of internal walls with thin slabs of rare
coloured-marbles and porphyries, and the incrustation of vaults with
mosaics of gilt and coloured glass, had the same origin.
This process of change in classical art carries us to some point in the
early centuries of Christianity, and many groups of facts shew that it
was long continued. Not only did Egypt and the East export their
porphyry, ivory, glass, bronze and textiles, but craftsmen were drawn to
the Roman capital from every Hellenistic city.
The works used or made by the Early Christians could at first have
been differentiated in no obvious way from the current classical works
of the time. When anything emerges which we can entitle Christian Art,
the change is, for the most part, manifest in a new spirit dealing with
old forms. The art was necessarily shaped externally by the modes and
codes of expression of the time. In many cases new ideas were expressed
under old forms ; thus the winged angel derives from the antique Victory;
the nimbus is classical as well as Christian; the story of Orpheus is
interpreted as a type of Christ; and Amor and Psyche are adopted as
symbols of the Divine Love and the soul.
## p. 599 (#629) ############################################
The Catacombs
599
In so far as there was novelty it is clear that, as Christianity itself
was from the East, so the changed forms must themselves have held in
them much that was oriental. Early Christian art is Roman art in the
widest sense, purified, orientalised, and informed with a new and epical
content which held as seed the possibilities of the mighty cycle of
Byzantine and Medieval art.
It is still in Rome and in the catacombs that the best connected series
of works of the first three or four centuries of this early art is found.
The great roads of approach to Rome were lined by countless tombs
of every degree of magnificence: rotundas, pyramids, cellae, and sarco-
phagi. Amongst them stood vestibules to underground tomb-chambers
where large numbers were buried in common. Along their walls, tier
upon tier, urns of ashes were packed like vases in a museum. The Jews
and other oriental peoples followed the custom of burying the unburnt
body in subterranean galleries, and appropriate sites for these also were
obtained round about Rome. The Christians, following the same usage,
at first shared such catacombs, and in other cases formed groups of their
own. The catacombs were primarily not places of hiding, however much
they may have been so used. Frequently there was a space above
ground planted as a garden, and made use of as a cemetery. In some
were small burial chapels from which access was obtained to the catacombs
beneath. The ruins of two or three such chapels have been discovered
and described. They agree in having had a central apse and two lateral
apses grouped together at one end.
There were also subterranean chapels, the most famous of which is
the Capella Graeca of the Catacomb of Priscilla. It has, roughly, the
form of a small nave or body, 8 by 25 ft. , ended by an apse with lateral
apses on each side of it. It opens from a long vaulted apartment
or atrium. The walls are decorated with paintings of the usual
subjects—Daniel, and Lazarus, Moses, Susannah, and the Adoration of
the Magi. On the vault over the nave are four heads representing the
Above the central apse is represented the Eucharistic repast.
This recently-discovered Fractio Panis is not only one of the most
interesting, it is also one of the most beautiful of the catacomb paint-
ings, as may be seen in the large photogravure published by Wilpert.
The forms and features of the seven participants are classic and gracious.
It is painted in a masterly way in a few simple colours on a vermilion
ground. The inscriptions on the walls are in Greek, hence the name of
the chapel. In the apse was an altar-tomb. It belongs to the second
century
Another catacomb church is probably of the third century, and a
third, the largest, in the catacomb of St Hermes is probably of the
fourth. The catacombs themselves are complexes of subterranean passages
and galleries excavated for the disposal of the dead, who rested one above
another along the sides. The chambers, more or less square, were
seasons.
CH. XXI.
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Christian Paintings
a
roughly vaulted above, and the vaults and walls were for the most part
decorated with painting, and occasionally with stucco reliefs. This
ornamentation was a branch of the ordinary house and tomb decorator's
work of the time, and the painted subjects were clearly executed with
the swift mastery which came of long practice in repeating a limited
stock of ideas. The vaulted ceilings were usually decorated by some
geometrical arrangement of panels, radiating from the centre and bounded
by a large circle. In these panels were little figures, groups, birds and
foliage. The colours were reds, greens and ochres and a little blue, the
whole mellow yet bright.
The subjects of these paintings have been most thoroughly illustrated,
and their chronology analysed, in Wilpert's large work. Under the first
century he groups several schemes of vault decoration in which the
motives consist of the geometrical division of the field, and of little
putti and foliage. One vault is entirely covered with a branching vine.
On others of the same century are landscapes and burial feasts, while
the cycle of Biblical subjects begins with Daniel standing between two
lions, and the Good Shepherd. To the second century he assigns vaults
on which appear the Three Children in the furnace, Moses striking the
rock, the Eucharist, Noah and the Ark, scenes from the story of Jonah,
and subjects from the life and miracles of Christ; the raising of Lazarus,
the cure of the paralytic, the cure of the woman, and the meeting with
the Samaritan. The most noticeable and beautiful is in the cemetery of
Priscilla, and represents the seated Virgin and Child, with a prophet
standing by, and a star or the sun above. This is a small group at the
side of a central composition of the Good Shepherd, from which it is
divided by a flowering tree. This central subject and the trees on either
hand of it were roughly modelled in the plaster before colouring. The
modelling of the tree is but a few swift marks of the tool defining the
trunk, and the leaves and flowers are painted. The Virgin and Child
are beautifully drawn with some remaining tradition of classical feeling.
The figures are only about a foot high, and unhappily the lower part
is much injured. The whole is very like a sketch by Watts. Belonging
to this century are two or three versions of the Baptism. Another
subject is the mocking of Christ; others are symbolical, a ship in a
storm, Orpheus charming the beasts, and orantes who represent souls
rather than persons. One beautiful vault is decorated by a series of
bands, on the lowest of which, on the four sides, are four typical
occupations of the seasons-picking Aowers, cutting corn, the vintage,
and gathering olives—while the upper bands are ornamented successively
with pattern-work of roses, corn, vine, and olive.
Amongst the third century paintings may be noticed Christ enthroned,
the Virgin and the Magi, and Amor and Psyche gathering flowers. In
the fourth century Christ is represented enthroned amidst the twelve
apostles, as in the apses of the early basilicas. In the fifth century the
## p. 601 (#631) ############################################
Sculpture
601
treatment of the figures becomes more rigid and hieratic, while their
costumes are much bejewelled, in a manner distinctly Byzantine. There
is little in the catacomb paintings which has peculiar application to the
grave. The raising of Lazarus or Daniel between the lions belong to a
series of “deliverance” subjects which were in general use in all forms of
“
Early Christian art; when we come to the fourth and fifth centuries
the decoration resembles that which we are accustomed to in the churches
of those centuries, and the decoration of the earlier catacombs would
have been equally according to the general custom of the time when
they were built. That is, the pre-Constantinian churches and earlier
domestic oratories must have been painted in like fashion with the cata-
combs. The ideas underlying the choice of subjects are of resurrection
and salvation, thoughts which are further expressed in the simple epitaphs,
which speak of hope, peace, and eternal welfare. Some of the subjects
chosen have, indeed, been compared with the ancient prayers for the
dying, “ Deliver, O Lord, Thy servant as Thou didst deliver Enoch and
Elias from the common death, as Thou didst deliver Noah from the
Deluge, Job from his torments, Isaac from the Sacrifice, Moses from the
hand of Pharaoh, Daniel from the lions, the three young men from the
furnace, and Susannah from false accusation. . . . So deign to deliver the
soul of Thy servant. ”
The orantes, who were figured with extended arms amidst such
scenes, are types of supplication. They are generally feminine, and are
symbols of the soul in prayer. Thus understood they go far to explain
the scope and meaning of the art of the catacombs.
There is little sculpture in the round extant from our period, but
it is almost surprising that there is any. The examples are three or four
figures of the Good Shepherd bearing the lamb on His shoulder. The
most perfect of these, in the Lateran Museum, is a sweet pastoral figure.
They have been compared with statues of Hermes bearing the ram.
The composition is clearly derived, but the sentiment is very different.
As usual, the Christians were using old symbols in a new spirit.
The early sarcophagi furnish us with a series of relief sculptures
parallel in extent and interest to the paintings of the catacombs. Some
are so little differentiated from late classical art that it is hardly possible
to
say whether they are indeed Christian. Others have quite a collection
of the usual triumph subjects which appear in the catacombs as paintings.
The most noteworthy of all of them is a fragment, now in the Berlin
Museum, which was lately brought from Constantinople. On it appear
Christ and two apostles, standing in niches, separated by columns.
Christ is unbearded and the head has a cruciform nimbus. The figures,
which are about four feet high, are draped in a dignified style like
classical statues of philosophers. This remarkable work has the closest
relation of style with the series of late antique sarcophagi, one of which
is in the Mausoleum Room of the British Museum, another in the Cook
CH. XXI.
## p. 602 (#632) ############################################
602
Engraved Gems
Collection at Richmond. The Berlin relief probably belongs to the
third century, and had its origin at Constantinople or in Asia Minor.
Another famous sarcophagus is that of Junius Bassus, praefect of
Rome, who died in 359. It has several scenes sculptured on it, amongst
which are, Christ enthroned, the Entry into Jerusalem, Christ brought
before Pilate, and Pilate washing his hands; also Adam and Eve,
Daniel, etc. The sculptures are in panels divided by columns, some of
which are covered with scrolls of foliage among which climb amorini.
This ornamentation is noteworthy, as the columns thus decorated resemble
the celebrated sculptured columns at St Peter's which are usually thought
to be antique. These columns formed a screen in front of the altar of
Constantine's basilica ; they were saved, and re-used in the new church.
The motive of Cupids climbing amidst vines is also found on the mosaics
of Santa Costanza (c. 360) and on many tombs.
Two more most famous sarcophagi must be spoken of— those of the
Empress Helena and of Santa Costanza. Both are of royal porphyry
with sculptures in high relief, and they are now in the Vatican. That
of the Empress is sculptured with a military triumph, that of Costanza
with amorini and the vintage, peacocks and lambs. With the latter
Strzygowski has lately compared fragments of other porphyry sarco-
phagi at Constantinople and Alexandria, and has shewn that they must
all have come from Egypt, the land of the porphyry-quarries and the
place of origin of other porphyry sculptures such as the well-known group
at the south-west corner of St Mark's, Venice.
A class of objects which dates from the time of the catacombs, if
not from the apostolic age, is that of engraved gems. Of these the
British Museum has a good representative collection.
“ The use of
rings as signets or ornaments was as widely spread among the early
Christians as among their Pagan contemporaries. St James speaks of the
man who wears a gold ring and goodly apparel, and the Fathers of the
Church were obliged to reprimand the community for extravagance in this
respect. ” The devices engraved on these gems are for the most part of
a simple symbolic character as befits the small field which they occupy.
In the British Museum collection we have anchors and fish, doves and
trees, sheep, branches of olive and palm, shepherds' crooks, ships, sacred
monograms, the word IXOYC, and the inscription Vivas in Deo.
