It was
therefore
just that he
should be forced to relinquish the sinners in behalf of whom the sinless
suffered.
should be forced to relinquish the sinners in behalf of whom the sinless
suffered.
Cambridge Medieval History - v1 - Christian Roman Empire and Teutonic Kingdoms
12; de Trin.
xv.
SS 17-20, 41.
CH. XX.
37-2
## p. 580 (#610) ############################################
580
Dæmonology and Divination
platonism, and secondly the magic that was its inseparable accompani-
ment.
It is mere futility to find a pagan source for every Christian saint
and festival, but a study of hagiographic literature reveals a very large
amount of heathen reminiscence, and even of formal adoption, in the
Church's Calendar. Doubtless there were other factors in the growth of
the cultus of the saints and their relics—human instinct, the Jewish
theory of merit, the veneration of confessors and martyrs, and the strong
confidence which from an early date was placed in the virtue of their
intercessions. But the extraordinary development of the cultus between
A. D. 325 and 450 can only be explained by the polytheistic or rather
the polydæmoniac tendencies of the mass of Gentile converts with the
memories of hero and dæmon worship in their minds. Again, Neo-
platonism involved the use of magic; the Christianity of the day
admitted belief in it; for while the Bible forbade the practice, it did
not deny its potency. Closely connected with magic stood divination,
whether by astrology and haruspication, or by dreams and oracles. The
Neoplatonists, following earlier thinkers, were committed to a theory
of inward illumination, and ascribed the various phenomena of divination
to the agency of spiritual forces working upon responsive souls. Christians
allowed the supernatural inspiration of pagan oracles but held that it
came, not from God like the inspiration of the Prophets, but from the
fellowship of wicked men with evil dæmons, of whose real existence they
had no manner of doubt. The fact that Scripture used the word datuóvlov
of an evil spirit was immediate evidence of his existence and his wicked-
ness. Philosophers might plead that there were beneficent dæmons.
Aaluóvlov had only one sense in the Bible, and that was enough to condemn
all that bear the name. The dæmons, in the worship of whom, as
Eusebius said, the whole religion of the heathen world consisted, were
the object of the Christian's deepest fear and hate as being the source
of all material and spiritual evil, and the avowed enemies of God. To
them were due all the errors and sins of men, all the cruelty of nature.
Wind and storm fulfilled God's word; but when mischief followed in
their train, it was the work of Satan and his angels. Intercourse with
these was stringently forbidden, but no one questioned its possibility.
Augustine records the various charms and rites by which dæmons can
be attracted; he was a firm believer in his mother's dreams and in her
power to distinguish between subjective impressions and heaven-sent
visions. And Synesius (writing, it is true, before his conversion) states his
conviction that divination is one of the best things practised among men.
Magic had been the object of penal legislation from the early days of the
Empire, but the very violence of the laws passed by Christian emperors
against it points to the prevalence of the belief in it, a belief which the
lawgiver shared with his subjects. Constantine and Theodosius may
have really looked to their anti-magical measures as a means to destroy
polytheism and purify the Church, but the former emperor expressly
## p. 581 (#611) ############################################
The authority of Scripture. Cosmogony
581
excluded from the scope of his edict rites whose object was to save
men from disease and the fields from harm, while his son Constantius,
and Valens and Valentinian, were persuaded that magic might be turned
against their life or power, and by way of self-defence fell to persecuting
the magicians as fiercely as their predecessors had persecuted the Church.
The title, “enemies of the human race,” formerly applied to Christians
was now transferred to the adepts in magical arts.
But present punishment and future warning were powerless to check
practices that were the natural results of all-prevailing credulity. What
this was in heathen circles may be learnt from the pages in which
Ammianus Marcellinus (A. D. 325–395) describes the Rome of his day;
“many who deny that there are powers supernal will not go abroad nor
breakfast nor bathe till they have consulted the calendar to find the
position of a planet. ” In Christian circles the credulity took also
another form, that of an easy belief in miracles, not only of serious
import such as the discovery of the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius
-which is still a problem to the historian-but trivialities such as the
winning of a horse race through the judicious use of holy water, the
gift of reading without letters, and all the marvels of the Thebaid. The
truth is that amid the universal ignorance of natural laws men were ready
to believe anything. And it must be confessed that what greatly
fostered credulity and error among educated Christians was the literal
interpretation of Scripture which held the field in spite of Alexandrian
allegorism. The scientific and the common sense of Augustine were alike
shocked by the interminable fables of the Manichaeans concerning sky
and stars, sun and moon; but it was their sacrilegious folly that finally
turned him from the sect. “The authority of Scripture is higher than
all the efforts of the human intelligence," he wrote, and the words
exactly express the mind of churchmen whenever there was a conflict
between physical theory and the faith. The erroneous speculations of
early philosophers, from whatever source derived, were taken up and
readily adopted, provided that they did not contradict the Bible.
There are already anticipations in the fourth century of the marvellous
scheme of Cosmas Indicopleustes in the sixth, whereof the chief features
were a two-storied firmament and a great northern mountain to hide
the sun by night-all duly supported by scriptural quotations. The
results to which Greek speculation had by a supreme intellectual effort
arrived were cast aside in favour of the wildest Eastern fancies, because
these latter had the apparent sanction of Genesis and the Psalms. The
heliocentric theory of the universe, which although not universally
admitted had at least been propounded and warmly supported, was
deliberately refused, first on the authority of Aristotle, and a system
adopted which led the world astray until Galileo. Genesis demanded
that the earth should be the centre, and the sun and stars lights for
man's convenience.
CH. XX.
## p. 582 (#612) ############################################
582
Antipodes.
Chronography. Eusebius
Again, the notion of a spherical earth was favoured in classical
antiquity even by geocentricians. But the words of Psalmist, Prophet,
and Apostle required a flat earth over which the heavens could be
stretched like a tent, and the believers in a globe with antipodes were
scouted with arguments borrowed from Lucretius the epicurean and
materialist. Augustine denies the possibility not of a rotund earth but
of human existence at the antipodes. “There was only one pair of
original ancestors, and it was inconceivable that such distant regions
should have been peopled by Adam's descendants. ” The logic is fair
enough; the false premiss arises from the worship of the letter. The
fact is that while as spiritual teachers the fathers are unrivalled, common
sense interpretation is rare enough in our period; it is not often that
we find such sober judgment as is shewn by Basil. “What is meant,"
he writes (Hom. in Ps. xxviii), “ by the voice of the Lord ? Are we to
understand thereby a disturbance caused in the air by the vocal organs ?
Is it not rather a lively image, a clear and sensible vision imprinted
on the mind of those to whom God wishes to communicate His thought,
a vision analogous to that which is imprinted on our mind when we
dream? "
In connexion with the unquestioning trust in the letter of Scripture
as the touch-stone for all matters of knowledge some mention must
be made of attempts to adjust universal history by the standard of
Biblical dates, although the results, in one instance at least, bear
witness to no uncritical credulity but to a singular freedom from
prejudice and to love of truth.
The science of comparative chronography, so greatly developed by
the Byzantines, was really founded by Sextus Julius Africanus in the
early third century. The beginning which he made was carried out
with far greater knowledge and with the use of much better material
by Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea (A. D. 265-338). Former critics were
inclined to belittle Eusebius' work and qualify him as a dishonest
writer who perverted chronology for the sake of making synchronisms
(so Niebuhr and Bunsen). It is certainly true that he manipulates
the figures supplied by his authorities and employs conjecture and
analogy to control the incredible length of their time-periods. But
his reductions are all worked in the sight of the reader, who if he
cannot allow the main contention, viz. the infallibility of the Biblical
numbers, must confess the honesty of the method and the soundness
of the process.
In dealing with Hebrew chronology Eusebius shews
candour and judgment. There was need of both, for even when the
discrepancies between the Hebrew and the LXX texts were removed
by claiming for the latter a higher inspiration, there remained contra-
dictions enough between the covers of the Greek Bible. For instance,
the time between the Exodus and Solomon's Temple is different in
Acts and Judges from what it is in Kings. On this point Eusebius,
## p. 583 (#613) ############################################
Chronography. Eusebius
583
after a fair and sensible discussion, decided boldly and to the dismay
of his contemporaries against St Paul in favour of the shorter period,
remarking that the Apostle's business was to teach the way of salvation
and not accurate chronology. The effect of this decision is to lessen
the antiquity of Moses by 283 years. This was clean against the whole
tendency of previous apologists, who desired to establish the seniority
of the Hebrew over all other lawgivers and philosophers. Eusebius,
although conscious that the reversal of preconceived opinion demands
some apology, is content to place Moses after Inachus. The work in
which these novel conclusions were set forth consists of two parts, of
which the first (Chronographia) contains the historical material-extracts
from profane and sacred writers—for the synthetic treatment of the
second part (Canones). Here the lists of the world's rulers are displayed
in parallel columns shewing at a glance with whom any given monarch
is contemporary. Side-notes accompany the lists, marking the main
events of history, and a separate column gives the years of the world's
age, reckoned from the birth of Abraham. The choice of this event as
the starting-point of the Synchronism distinguishes the work of Eusebius
from that of his predecessors and does great credit to his historical sense
and honesty. As a Christian he felt that his standard of measurement
must be the record of the scriptures; but as a historian he saw that
history really begins with Abraham, the earlier chapters of Genesis being
intended for edification rather than instruction. At a time when the
Jews were a despised race, it was no slight achievement to place their
history on a footing with that of proud and powerful monarchies,
and although Eusebius' work cannot at all points stand the test of
modern science, it is of permanent value to-day both as a source of
information and as a model of historical research. The Canons were
translated by Jerome and thus obtained at once, even in the West,
a position of undisputed authority. The Latin medieval chronicle is
founded on Eusebius, whose name, together with his translator's, quite
overshadowed all other workers in the same field whether earlier or later,
such as Africanus or Sulpicius Severus.
But although the learned labours of Eusebius bear witness to a strong
individual regard for truth and a vast range of secular knowledge, the
solid contributions to thought on the part of Christian writers must be
looked for in other directions. The period which we must admit to have
been marked by so much credulity and error in matters of science is the
period of the oecumenical councils, of the conciliar creeds and the
consequent systematisation of Christian doctrine. Councils gathered
and expressed in creed and canon the common belief and practice of
the churches. Their aim was, not to introduce fresh doctrine, but
precisely the reverse, to protect from ruinous innovation the faith once
delivered. Nor were the creeds, which served as tests of orthodoxy,
intended to simplify or explain the mystery of that faith.
OH. XX.
## p. 584 (#614) ############################################
584
Theological Controversy. Substance. Person
they reaffirmed in terms congenial to the age the inexplicable mystery
of the revelation in Christ. It was such heretics as the Arians who tried
to simplify and explain the difficulties that confronted the Christian
believer. This intellectual effort was met by an appeal to experience, to
man's need of redemption and the means by which that need is satisfied.
The great advance made by Athanasius was really a return to the
simple facts of the Gospel and the words of Scripture. “He went back
from the Logos of the philosophers to the Logos of St John, from the
god of the philosophers to God in Christ, reconciling the world to
Himself. ” In a word, the great victories of the fourth and fifth centuries
were the victories of soteriology over theological speculation. Into the
thorny labyrinth of the Arian and Nestorian conflicts there is no need
to enter in this chapter. We have only to consider what contributions
to general thought were made by the victorious party.
The process of fixing the terminology in which the results of the
Arian controversy were expressed and the doctrine affirmed of One
God in three Persons of equal and coeternal majesty and Godhead
could not be carried through without a serious attempt to deal with
the problem of personality. Pre-Christian thinkers had no clear
understanding, or at least had not formulated a clear view, of human
personality in its two most essential features, viz. universality and unity.
These were necessarily brought out by Christianity, first in the historic
figure of its founder and His unexampled life, and then in the
development of the doctrine of His person. In that development the
Cappadocian fathers were pioneers. The formula in which they declared
the eternal relations existing within the Godhead-uía ovoía Tpeis
ÚTOOTLOers—marks a great advance in scientific precision of thought
and language. Up to A. D. 362 ovoia and úrootasis were interchange-
able terms. Athanasius in one of his latest writings says that they
both mean Being. Misunderstanding and confusion inevitably followed.
But after the Synod of Alexandria in A. D. 362 ovo ía in Christian docu-
ments means the Being which is shared by several individuals and úró-
ataois the special character of the individual. For this happy settlement
Basil of Caesarea was largely responsible. He distinguishes between
the terms and defines ovoía as the general, útbotaois as the particular,
in application to both human and divine existence. “Every one of us
both shares in existence by the general term of ovola and by his own
properties in such and such a one. Similarly the term ovoia is common,
like goodness or Godhead, while útootasis is contemplated in the
special quality of Fatherhood, Sonship, or the power to sanctify. "
The way was thus prepared for Boethius' great definition of person
as the individual substance of a rational nature (persona est naturae
rationalis individua substantia, contra Eut. et Nest. II. ), which was
accepted by Thomas Aquinas and held good throughout the Middle
Ages. But between the times of Basil and Boethius a great controversy
## p. 585 (#615) ############################################
Free Will and Grace
585
had arisen which carried forward the recognition of the facts of human
personality—the controversy concerning the will and its freedom.
To understand this we must know what were the current opinions
concerning the origin of the soul. The Platonic doctrine of pre-exist-
ence, as taught by Origen, had had its day; the only traces of it within
the period are to be found in the pages of Nemesius the philosophic
bishop of Emesa, and, less certainly, in those of Prudentius the Spanish
poet. Thus the field was divided between Creatianism and Traduci.
anism. The former view, according to which each soul is a new
creation, the body alone being naturally begotten, emphasized the
essential purity of the spiritual principle, the evilness of matter, and
the unity of man's physical nature. Traducianism, on the other hand,
maintained the transmission from the first parents through all succeeding
generations of both soul and body, and sin therewith. Creatianism left
room for the exercise of a free will, enfeebled but not destroyed by the
Fall; Traducianism seemed to exclude free will and to posit a total
corruption of soul and body. Creatianism was held by most of the
Eastern fathers, and by Jerome and Hilary in the West: Traducianism,
by the Westerns generally and by Gregory of Nyssa. Augustine, with-
out definitely declaring himself on either side, was so far traducianist
that he regarded the Fall as an historical act resulting in such a
complete disablement of man's will that a special divine operation was
required to start him again on the Godward path from which Adam's
sin had driven him. Without Grace man can only will and do evil.
To this conclusion Augustine was led in large measure by his own
experience. He had undergone a two-fold conversion, first intellectual
and then moral. The former brought him a conviction of divine truth
and beauty ; the latter, a recognition of human weakness. He had
seen God, but the cloud of sin obscured the vision, the power of the
world still enthralled his will; for the surrender to which he felt himself
called meant surrender of all his habits, hopes, and desires. The
conflict between his will and his reluctance was terrific. The world
must have won, had not God come to his aid and set his will free to
Looking back at his life, the long enslavement of his will and
the final victory, he is compelled to confess that he himself contributed
nothing towards the restoration of his will and the recovery of peace.
He had always believed in God's Grace, but once he held that man's
own Faith, fruit of Free Will, went forth to meet it. Now he felt, and
St Paul confirmed the conviction, that the whole movement was from
God, that Faith as much as Grace is His gift, and that both are
determined by the inscrutable decree of His predestinating counsel.
Henceforth (this conversion took place in A. D. 386) the sense of God's
guidance colours all his thought-a guidance unseen at the time but
recognisable in a retrospect. What was true for him must be true
for all. Augustine's character and circumstances are the clue to his
CH, XX.
## p. 586 (#616) ############################################
586
Free Will and Grace
later doctrine and his controversies. Thus it was the passionate cry
of the Confessions for help against self, da quod jubes et jube quod vis,
that evoked the Pelagian controversy. Pelagius, quiet inmate of the
cloister, hardly knew what temptation is, and protested against words
that discouraged moral effort and fostered fatalism. * Grace was good
and a help; sin was widespread; but the latter was due not to an
inherited taint but to the influence of Adam's bad example. Man can
overcome temptation, if he sets his will to it. ” Augustine met the
charge of fatalism by a scornful repudiation of the superstitions that
attend the system, and of the impiety which confuses blind and undis-
criminating Fate with Grace working with infinite wisdom on vessels
of choice. But God's Predestination involves necessity, and this he
co-ordinates with man's Free Will in a scheme that clearly betrays the
influence of Roman jurisprudence. The synthesis is incomplete, the
facts are stated scientifically and empirically, but the legal cast given
to a purely metaphysical conception clouds rather than clears the issue.
Here was material for debate. The fight began in A. D. 411 and lasted
with varying fortune until A. D. 418 when Pelagianism was condemned
by Councils in Africa and at Rome, the infirmity of the Will and the
vital need of Grace for the fulfilment of God's purposes being affirmed
against all compromise. But a strong body of Christian syin pathy, due
partly to the prevalence of the monastic ideal and partly to a confusion
between sin and atrocious sin, remained and still remains on the side
of the Pelagians. Attempts were made to mediate between the two
extremes by Cassian and Faustus of Riez, both of them monks, who
were in great fear of fatalism and who, whilst condemning Pelagius
as a heretic, urged the need of man's co-operation in the work of Grace.
The predestination of a few they regarded as simple impiety, though
they could not deny God's foreknowledge as to who are to be saved.
It is plain that Foreknowledge raises more difficulties than it answers.
A further and a bold attempt at explanation is offered by Boethius,
who saw very clearly the danger of measuring the arm of God by the
finger of man. He starts with the thesis, “all things are foreseen but
all do not happen by necessity. ” But how can human freedom be
really free if it is already foreseen by God? The answer lies in a
recognition of the difference between the divine and human faculties
of knowledge. “God's knowledge is a present consciousness of all things,
past, present, and to come. Human knowledge as regards things future
is called prescience. The divine knowledge of things future is rather
called providence than prescience, because, transcending time, it looks
down as from a lofty height upon a time-conditioned world. Such
knowledge is no more incompatible with human freedom, than human
knowledge is incompatible with present free acts” (de Cons. v. pr. 6).
The thought of man's fallen nature and consequent alienation from
God, which is the starting-point of the Free Will controversy, leads
## p. 587 (#617) ############################################
The Atonement
587
naturally to the thought of Atonement through the death of Christ,
and Atonement involves the theory of the Church and its sacraments,
whereby the benefits of the Atonement are secured. On all these topics
our period throws fresh light.
Two of the main aspects under which the earliest Christian writers
regarded the Atonement were those of a sacrifice to God and of a
ransom from evil. They did not specify to whom the price was paid.
The third century had tried to remedy their indefiniteness by the
unfortunate addition of the words “to Satan," and the proposition thus
enlarged held its own for nearly 1000 years until it was discredited by
Anselm? . The notion that the arch-enemy had overreached himself,
and, while receiving the ransom, found no advantage in it (inasmuch
as Christ's death saved more souls than His life), appealed to the mind
of the age, and Gregory of Nyssa's grotesque image of the devil caught
by the hook of the Deity, baited with the Humanity, was taken up
and repeated with applause. But not by all. The “harrowing of
Hell,” in the form current in the fourth century, describes deliverance
of souls by the triumphant Christ without a word of ransom. Gregory
of Nazianzus rejects with scorn the notion of ransom paid to Satan
or to God; the views of Athanasius and Augustine are entirely free
from bad taste and extravagance. 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.
CH. XX.
37-2
## p. 580 (#610) ############################################
580
Dæmonology and Divination
platonism, and secondly the magic that was its inseparable accompani-
ment.
It is mere futility to find a pagan source for every Christian saint
and festival, but a study of hagiographic literature reveals a very large
amount of heathen reminiscence, and even of formal adoption, in the
Church's Calendar. Doubtless there were other factors in the growth of
the cultus of the saints and their relics—human instinct, the Jewish
theory of merit, the veneration of confessors and martyrs, and the strong
confidence which from an early date was placed in the virtue of their
intercessions. But the extraordinary development of the cultus between
A. D. 325 and 450 can only be explained by the polytheistic or rather
the polydæmoniac tendencies of the mass of Gentile converts with the
memories of hero and dæmon worship in their minds. Again, Neo-
platonism involved the use of magic; the Christianity of the day
admitted belief in it; for while the Bible forbade the practice, it did
not deny its potency. Closely connected with magic stood divination,
whether by astrology and haruspication, or by dreams and oracles. The
Neoplatonists, following earlier thinkers, were committed to a theory
of inward illumination, and ascribed the various phenomena of divination
to the agency of spiritual forces working upon responsive souls. Christians
allowed the supernatural inspiration of pagan oracles but held that it
came, not from God like the inspiration of the Prophets, but from the
fellowship of wicked men with evil dæmons, of whose real existence they
had no manner of doubt. The fact that Scripture used the word datuóvlov
of an evil spirit was immediate evidence of his existence and his wicked-
ness. Philosophers might plead that there were beneficent dæmons.
Aaluóvlov had only one sense in the Bible, and that was enough to condemn
all that bear the name. The dæmons, in the worship of whom, as
Eusebius said, the whole religion of the heathen world consisted, were
the object of the Christian's deepest fear and hate as being the source
of all material and spiritual evil, and the avowed enemies of God. To
them were due all the errors and sins of men, all the cruelty of nature.
Wind and storm fulfilled God's word; but when mischief followed in
their train, it was the work of Satan and his angels. Intercourse with
these was stringently forbidden, but no one questioned its possibility.
Augustine records the various charms and rites by which dæmons can
be attracted; he was a firm believer in his mother's dreams and in her
power to distinguish between subjective impressions and heaven-sent
visions. And Synesius (writing, it is true, before his conversion) states his
conviction that divination is one of the best things practised among men.
Magic had been the object of penal legislation from the early days of the
Empire, but the very violence of the laws passed by Christian emperors
against it points to the prevalence of the belief in it, a belief which the
lawgiver shared with his subjects. Constantine and Theodosius may
have really looked to their anti-magical measures as a means to destroy
polytheism and purify the Church, but the former emperor expressly
## p. 581 (#611) ############################################
The authority of Scripture. Cosmogony
581
excluded from the scope of his edict rites whose object was to save
men from disease and the fields from harm, while his son Constantius,
and Valens and Valentinian, were persuaded that magic might be turned
against their life or power, and by way of self-defence fell to persecuting
the magicians as fiercely as their predecessors had persecuted the Church.
The title, “enemies of the human race,” formerly applied to Christians
was now transferred to the adepts in magical arts.
But present punishment and future warning were powerless to check
practices that were the natural results of all-prevailing credulity. What
this was in heathen circles may be learnt from the pages in which
Ammianus Marcellinus (A. D. 325–395) describes the Rome of his day;
“many who deny that there are powers supernal will not go abroad nor
breakfast nor bathe till they have consulted the calendar to find the
position of a planet. ” In Christian circles the credulity took also
another form, that of an easy belief in miracles, not only of serious
import such as the discovery of the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius
-which is still a problem to the historian-but trivialities such as the
winning of a horse race through the judicious use of holy water, the
gift of reading without letters, and all the marvels of the Thebaid. The
truth is that amid the universal ignorance of natural laws men were ready
to believe anything. And it must be confessed that what greatly
fostered credulity and error among educated Christians was the literal
interpretation of Scripture which held the field in spite of Alexandrian
allegorism. The scientific and the common sense of Augustine were alike
shocked by the interminable fables of the Manichaeans concerning sky
and stars, sun and moon; but it was their sacrilegious folly that finally
turned him from the sect. “The authority of Scripture is higher than
all the efforts of the human intelligence," he wrote, and the words
exactly express the mind of churchmen whenever there was a conflict
between physical theory and the faith. The erroneous speculations of
early philosophers, from whatever source derived, were taken up and
readily adopted, provided that they did not contradict the Bible.
There are already anticipations in the fourth century of the marvellous
scheme of Cosmas Indicopleustes in the sixth, whereof the chief features
were a two-storied firmament and a great northern mountain to hide
the sun by night-all duly supported by scriptural quotations. The
results to which Greek speculation had by a supreme intellectual effort
arrived were cast aside in favour of the wildest Eastern fancies, because
these latter had the apparent sanction of Genesis and the Psalms. The
heliocentric theory of the universe, which although not universally
admitted had at least been propounded and warmly supported, was
deliberately refused, first on the authority of Aristotle, and a system
adopted which led the world astray until Galileo. Genesis demanded
that the earth should be the centre, and the sun and stars lights for
man's convenience.
CH. XX.
## p. 582 (#612) ############################################
582
Antipodes.
Chronography. Eusebius
Again, the notion of a spherical earth was favoured in classical
antiquity even by geocentricians. But the words of Psalmist, Prophet,
and Apostle required a flat earth over which the heavens could be
stretched like a tent, and the believers in a globe with antipodes were
scouted with arguments borrowed from Lucretius the epicurean and
materialist. Augustine denies the possibility not of a rotund earth but
of human existence at the antipodes. “There was only one pair of
original ancestors, and it was inconceivable that such distant regions
should have been peopled by Adam's descendants. ” The logic is fair
enough; the false premiss arises from the worship of the letter. The
fact is that while as spiritual teachers the fathers are unrivalled, common
sense interpretation is rare enough in our period; it is not often that
we find such sober judgment as is shewn by Basil. “What is meant,"
he writes (Hom. in Ps. xxviii), “ by the voice of the Lord ? Are we to
understand thereby a disturbance caused in the air by the vocal organs ?
Is it not rather a lively image, a clear and sensible vision imprinted
on the mind of those to whom God wishes to communicate His thought,
a vision analogous to that which is imprinted on our mind when we
dream? "
In connexion with the unquestioning trust in the letter of Scripture
as the touch-stone for all matters of knowledge some mention must
be made of attempts to adjust universal history by the standard of
Biblical dates, although the results, in one instance at least, bear
witness to no uncritical credulity but to a singular freedom from
prejudice and to love of truth.
The science of comparative chronography, so greatly developed by
the Byzantines, was really founded by Sextus Julius Africanus in the
early third century. The beginning which he made was carried out
with far greater knowledge and with the use of much better material
by Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea (A. D. 265-338). Former critics were
inclined to belittle Eusebius' work and qualify him as a dishonest
writer who perverted chronology for the sake of making synchronisms
(so Niebuhr and Bunsen). It is certainly true that he manipulates
the figures supplied by his authorities and employs conjecture and
analogy to control the incredible length of their time-periods. But
his reductions are all worked in the sight of the reader, who if he
cannot allow the main contention, viz. the infallibility of the Biblical
numbers, must confess the honesty of the method and the soundness
of the process.
In dealing with Hebrew chronology Eusebius shews
candour and judgment. There was need of both, for even when the
discrepancies between the Hebrew and the LXX texts were removed
by claiming for the latter a higher inspiration, there remained contra-
dictions enough between the covers of the Greek Bible. For instance,
the time between the Exodus and Solomon's Temple is different in
Acts and Judges from what it is in Kings. On this point Eusebius,
## p. 583 (#613) ############################################
Chronography. Eusebius
583
after a fair and sensible discussion, decided boldly and to the dismay
of his contemporaries against St Paul in favour of the shorter period,
remarking that the Apostle's business was to teach the way of salvation
and not accurate chronology. The effect of this decision is to lessen
the antiquity of Moses by 283 years. This was clean against the whole
tendency of previous apologists, who desired to establish the seniority
of the Hebrew over all other lawgivers and philosophers. Eusebius,
although conscious that the reversal of preconceived opinion demands
some apology, is content to place Moses after Inachus. The work in
which these novel conclusions were set forth consists of two parts, of
which the first (Chronographia) contains the historical material-extracts
from profane and sacred writers—for the synthetic treatment of the
second part (Canones). Here the lists of the world's rulers are displayed
in parallel columns shewing at a glance with whom any given monarch
is contemporary. Side-notes accompany the lists, marking the main
events of history, and a separate column gives the years of the world's
age, reckoned from the birth of Abraham. The choice of this event as
the starting-point of the Synchronism distinguishes the work of Eusebius
from that of his predecessors and does great credit to his historical sense
and honesty. As a Christian he felt that his standard of measurement
must be the record of the scriptures; but as a historian he saw that
history really begins with Abraham, the earlier chapters of Genesis being
intended for edification rather than instruction. At a time when the
Jews were a despised race, it was no slight achievement to place their
history on a footing with that of proud and powerful monarchies,
and although Eusebius' work cannot at all points stand the test of
modern science, it is of permanent value to-day both as a source of
information and as a model of historical research. The Canons were
translated by Jerome and thus obtained at once, even in the West,
a position of undisputed authority. The Latin medieval chronicle is
founded on Eusebius, whose name, together with his translator's, quite
overshadowed all other workers in the same field whether earlier or later,
such as Africanus or Sulpicius Severus.
But although the learned labours of Eusebius bear witness to a strong
individual regard for truth and a vast range of secular knowledge, the
solid contributions to thought on the part of Christian writers must be
looked for in other directions. The period which we must admit to have
been marked by so much credulity and error in matters of science is the
period of the oecumenical councils, of the conciliar creeds and the
consequent systematisation of Christian doctrine. Councils gathered
and expressed in creed and canon the common belief and practice of
the churches. Their aim was, not to introduce fresh doctrine, but
precisely the reverse, to protect from ruinous innovation the faith once
delivered. Nor were the creeds, which served as tests of orthodoxy,
intended to simplify or explain the mystery of that faith.
OH. XX.
## p. 584 (#614) ############################################
584
Theological Controversy. Substance. Person
they reaffirmed in terms congenial to the age the inexplicable mystery
of the revelation in Christ. It was such heretics as the Arians who tried
to simplify and explain the difficulties that confronted the Christian
believer. This intellectual effort was met by an appeal to experience, to
man's need of redemption and the means by which that need is satisfied.
The great advance made by Athanasius was really a return to the
simple facts of the Gospel and the words of Scripture. “He went back
from the Logos of the philosophers to the Logos of St John, from the
god of the philosophers to God in Christ, reconciling the world to
Himself. ” In a word, the great victories of the fourth and fifth centuries
were the victories of soteriology over theological speculation. Into the
thorny labyrinth of the Arian and Nestorian conflicts there is no need
to enter in this chapter. We have only to consider what contributions
to general thought were made by the victorious party.
The process of fixing the terminology in which the results of the
Arian controversy were expressed and the doctrine affirmed of One
God in three Persons of equal and coeternal majesty and Godhead
could not be carried through without a serious attempt to deal with
the problem of personality. Pre-Christian thinkers had no clear
understanding, or at least had not formulated a clear view, of human
personality in its two most essential features, viz. universality and unity.
These were necessarily brought out by Christianity, first in the historic
figure of its founder and His unexampled life, and then in the
development of the doctrine of His person. In that development the
Cappadocian fathers were pioneers. The formula in which they declared
the eternal relations existing within the Godhead-uía ovoía Tpeis
ÚTOOTLOers—marks a great advance in scientific precision of thought
and language. Up to A. D. 362 ovoia and úrootasis were interchange-
able terms. Athanasius in one of his latest writings says that they
both mean Being. Misunderstanding and confusion inevitably followed.
But after the Synod of Alexandria in A. D. 362 ovo ía in Christian docu-
ments means the Being which is shared by several individuals and úró-
ataois the special character of the individual. For this happy settlement
Basil of Caesarea was largely responsible. He distinguishes between
the terms and defines ovoía as the general, útbotaois as the particular,
in application to both human and divine existence. “Every one of us
both shares in existence by the general term of ovola and by his own
properties in such and such a one. Similarly the term ovoia is common,
like goodness or Godhead, while útootasis is contemplated in the
special quality of Fatherhood, Sonship, or the power to sanctify. "
The way was thus prepared for Boethius' great definition of person
as the individual substance of a rational nature (persona est naturae
rationalis individua substantia, contra Eut. et Nest. II. ), which was
accepted by Thomas Aquinas and held good throughout the Middle
Ages. But between the times of Basil and Boethius a great controversy
## p. 585 (#615) ############################################
Free Will and Grace
585
had arisen which carried forward the recognition of the facts of human
personality—the controversy concerning the will and its freedom.
To understand this we must know what were the current opinions
concerning the origin of the soul. The Platonic doctrine of pre-exist-
ence, as taught by Origen, had had its day; the only traces of it within
the period are to be found in the pages of Nemesius the philosophic
bishop of Emesa, and, less certainly, in those of Prudentius the Spanish
poet. Thus the field was divided between Creatianism and Traduci.
anism. The former view, according to which each soul is a new
creation, the body alone being naturally begotten, emphasized the
essential purity of the spiritual principle, the evilness of matter, and
the unity of man's physical nature. Traducianism, on the other hand,
maintained the transmission from the first parents through all succeeding
generations of both soul and body, and sin therewith. Creatianism left
room for the exercise of a free will, enfeebled but not destroyed by the
Fall; Traducianism seemed to exclude free will and to posit a total
corruption of soul and body. Creatianism was held by most of the
Eastern fathers, and by Jerome and Hilary in the West: Traducianism,
by the Westerns generally and by Gregory of Nyssa. Augustine, with-
out definitely declaring himself on either side, was so far traducianist
that he regarded the Fall as an historical act resulting in such a
complete disablement of man's will that a special divine operation was
required to start him again on the Godward path from which Adam's
sin had driven him. Without Grace man can only will and do evil.
To this conclusion Augustine was led in large measure by his own
experience. He had undergone a two-fold conversion, first intellectual
and then moral. The former brought him a conviction of divine truth
and beauty ; the latter, a recognition of human weakness. He had
seen God, but the cloud of sin obscured the vision, the power of the
world still enthralled his will; for the surrender to which he felt himself
called meant surrender of all his habits, hopes, and desires. The
conflict between his will and his reluctance was terrific. The world
must have won, had not God come to his aid and set his will free to
Looking back at his life, the long enslavement of his will and
the final victory, he is compelled to confess that he himself contributed
nothing towards the restoration of his will and the recovery of peace.
He had always believed in God's Grace, but once he held that man's
own Faith, fruit of Free Will, went forth to meet it. Now he felt, and
St Paul confirmed the conviction, that the whole movement was from
God, that Faith as much as Grace is His gift, and that both are
determined by the inscrutable decree of His predestinating counsel.
Henceforth (this conversion took place in A. D. 386) the sense of God's
guidance colours all his thought-a guidance unseen at the time but
recognisable in a retrospect. What was true for him must be true
for all. Augustine's character and circumstances are the clue to his
CH, XX.
## p. 586 (#616) ############################################
586
Free Will and Grace
later doctrine and his controversies. Thus it was the passionate cry
of the Confessions for help against self, da quod jubes et jube quod vis,
that evoked the Pelagian controversy. Pelagius, quiet inmate of the
cloister, hardly knew what temptation is, and protested against words
that discouraged moral effort and fostered fatalism. * Grace was good
and a help; sin was widespread; but the latter was due not to an
inherited taint but to the influence of Adam's bad example. Man can
overcome temptation, if he sets his will to it. ” Augustine met the
charge of fatalism by a scornful repudiation of the superstitions that
attend the system, and of the impiety which confuses blind and undis-
criminating Fate with Grace working with infinite wisdom on vessels
of choice. But God's Predestination involves necessity, and this he
co-ordinates with man's Free Will in a scheme that clearly betrays the
influence of Roman jurisprudence. The synthesis is incomplete, the
facts are stated scientifically and empirically, but the legal cast given
to a purely metaphysical conception clouds rather than clears the issue.
Here was material for debate. The fight began in A. D. 411 and lasted
with varying fortune until A. D. 418 when Pelagianism was condemned
by Councils in Africa and at Rome, the infirmity of the Will and the
vital need of Grace for the fulfilment of God's purposes being affirmed
against all compromise. But a strong body of Christian syin pathy, due
partly to the prevalence of the monastic ideal and partly to a confusion
between sin and atrocious sin, remained and still remains on the side
of the Pelagians. Attempts were made to mediate between the two
extremes by Cassian and Faustus of Riez, both of them monks, who
were in great fear of fatalism and who, whilst condemning Pelagius
as a heretic, urged the need of man's co-operation in the work of Grace.
The predestination of a few they regarded as simple impiety, though
they could not deny God's foreknowledge as to who are to be saved.
It is plain that Foreknowledge raises more difficulties than it answers.
A further and a bold attempt at explanation is offered by Boethius,
who saw very clearly the danger of measuring the arm of God by the
finger of man. He starts with the thesis, “all things are foreseen but
all do not happen by necessity. ” But how can human freedom be
really free if it is already foreseen by God? The answer lies in a
recognition of the difference between the divine and human faculties
of knowledge. “God's knowledge is a present consciousness of all things,
past, present, and to come. Human knowledge as regards things future
is called prescience. The divine knowledge of things future is rather
called providence than prescience, because, transcending time, it looks
down as from a lofty height upon a time-conditioned world. Such
knowledge is no more incompatible with human freedom, than human
knowledge is incompatible with present free acts” (de Cons. v. pr. 6).
The thought of man's fallen nature and consequent alienation from
God, which is the starting-point of the Free Will controversy, leads
## p. 587 (#617) ############################################
The Atonement
587
naturally to the thought of Atonement through the death of Christ,
and Atonement involves the theory of the Church and its sacraments,
whereby the benefits of the Atonement are secured. On all these topics
our period throws fresh light.
Two of the main aspects under which the earliest Christian writers
regarded the Atonement were those of a sacrifice to God and of a
ransom from evil. They did not specify to whom the price was paid.
The third century had tried to remedy their indefiniteness by the
unfortunate addition of the words “to Satan," and the proposition thus
enlarged held its own for nearly 1000 years until it was discredited by
Anselm? . The notion that the arch-enemy had overreached himself,
and, while receiving the ransom, found no advantage in it (inasmuch
as Christ's death saved more souls than His life), appealed to the mind
of the age, and Gregory of Nyssa's grotesque image of the devil caught
by the hook of the Deity, baited with the Humanity, was taken up
and repeated with applause. But not by all. The “harrowing of
Hell,” in the form current in the fourth century, describes deliverance
of souls by the triumphant Christ without a word of ransom. Gregory
of Nazianzus rejects with scorn the notion of ransom paid to Satan
or to God; the views of Athanasius and Augustine are entirely free
from bad taste and extravagance. 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.
