Читать книгу The History of Church - J. H. Kurtz - Страница 52

After the overthrow of Licinius (§ 22, 7) Constantine identified himself unreservedly with Christianity, but accepted baptism only shortly before his death in A.D. 337. He was tolerant toward paganism, though encouraging its abandonment in all possible ways. His sons, however, began to put it down by violence. Julian’s short reign was a historical anomaly which only proved that paganism did not die a violent death, but rather gradually succumbed to a Marasmus senilis. Succeeding emperors reverted to the policy of persecution and extermination.—Neoplatonism, notwithstanding the patronage of Julian and the brilliant reputation of its leading representatives, could not reach the goal arrived at, but from the ethereal heights of philosophical speculation sank ever further and further into the misty region of fantastic superstition (§ 24, 2). The attempts at regeneration made by the Hypsistarians, Euphemites, Cœlicolæ, in which paganism strove after a revival by means of a barren Jewish monotheism or an effete Sabaism, proved miserable failures. The literary conflict between Christianity and paganism had almost completely altered its tone.

§ 42.1. The Romish Legend of the Baptism of Constantine.—That Constantine the Great only accepted baptism shortly before his death in Nicomedia, from Eusebius, bishop of that place, and a well-known leader of the Arian party (§ 50, 1, 2), is put beyond question by the evidence of his contemporary Eusebius of Cæsarea in his Vita Const., of Ambrose, of Jerome in his Chronicle, etc. About the end of the 5th century, however, a tradition, connecting itself with the fact that a Roman baptistery bore the name of Constantine, gained currency in Rome, to the effect that Constantine had been baptised at this baptistery more than twenty years before his death by Pope Sylvester (A.D. 314–335). According to this purely fabulous legend Constantine, who had up to that time been a bitter enemy and persecutor of the Christians, became affected with leprosy, for the cure of which he was recommended to bathe in a tub filled with the blood of an innocent child. Moved by the tears of the mother the emperor rejected this means of cure, and under the direction of a heavenly vision applied to the Pope, who by Christian baptism delivered him from his malady, whereupon all the members of the Roman senate still heathens, and all the people were straightway converted to Christ, etc. This legend is told in the so-called Decretum Gelasii (§ 47, 22), but is first vindicated as historically true in the Liber pontificalis (§ 90, 6), and next in A.D. 729, in Bede’s Chronicle (§ 90, 2). In the notorious Donatio Constantini (§ 87, 4) it is unhesitatingly accepted. Since then, at first with some exceptions but soon without exceptions, all chroniclers of the Middle Ages and likewise since the 9th century the Scriptores hist. Byzant., have adopted it. And although in the 15th century Æneas Sylvius and Nicolaus [Nicolas] of Cusa admitted that the legend was without foundation, yet in the 16th century in Baronius and Bellarmine, and in the 17th in Schelstraate, it found earnest defenders. The learned French Benedictines of the 17th century were the first to render it utterly incredible even in the Roman Catholic church.113

§ 42.2. Constantine the Great and his Sons.—Constantine’s profession of Christianity was not wholly the result of political craft, though his use of the name Pontifex Maximus and in this capacity the continued exercise of certain pagan practices, gave some colour to such an opinion. Outbursts of passion, impulsiveness exhibited in deeds of violence and cruelty, as in the order for the execution of his eldest son Crispus in A.D. 326 and his second wife Fausta, are met with even in his later years. Soon after receiving baptism he died without having ever attended a complete divine service. His toleration of paganism must be regarded purely as a piece of statecraft. He only prohibited impure rites and assigned to the Christians but a few of the temples that had actually been in use. Aversion to the paganism still prevalent among the principal families in Rome may partly have led him to transfer his residence to Byzantium, since called Constantinople, in A.D. 330. His three sons divided the Empire among them. Constantius (A.D. 337–361) retained the East, and became, after the death of Constantine II. in A.D. 340 and of Constans in A.D. 350, sole ruler. All the three sought to put down paganism by force. Constantius closed the heathen temples and forbade all sacrifices on pain of death. Multitudes of heathens went over to Christianity, few probably from conviction. Among the nobler pagans there was thus awakened a strong aversion to Christianity. Patriotism and manly spirit came to be identified with the maintenance of the old religion.114

§ 42.3. Julian the Apostate (A.D. 361–363).—The sons of Constantine the Great began their reign in A.D. 337 with the murder of their male relatives. The brothers Julian and Gallus, nephews of Constantine, alone were spared; but in A.D. 345 they were banished to a Cappadocian castle where Julian officiated for a while as reader in the village church. Having at last obtained leave to study in Nicomedia, then in Ephesus, and finally in Athens, the chief representatives of paganism fostered in him the conviction that he was specially raised up by the gods to restore again the old religion of his fathers. As early as A.D. 351 in Nicomedia he formally though still secretly returned to paganism, and at Athens in A.D. 355 he took part in the Eleusinian mysteries. Soon thereafter Constantius, harassed by foreign wars, assigned to him the command of the army against the Germans. By affability, personal courage and high military talent, he soon won to himself the enthusiastic attachment of the soldiers. Constantius thought to weaken the evident power of his cousin which seemed to threaten his authority, by recalling the best of the legions, but the legions refused obedience and proclaimed Julian emperor. Then the emperor refused to ratify the election and treated Julian himself as a rebel. The latter advanced at the head of his army by forced marches upon the capital, but ere he reached the city, he received the tidings of the opposing emperor’s death. Acknowledged now as emperor throughout the whole empire without any opposition, Julian proceeded with zeal, enthusiasm and vigour to accomplish his long-cherished wish, the restoring of the glory of the old national religion. He used no violent measures for the subversion and overthrow of Christianity, nor did he punish Christian obstinacy with death, except where it seemed to him the maintenance of his supremacy required it. But he demanded that temples which had been converted into churches should be restored to the heathen worship, those destroyed should be restored at the cost of the church exchequer and the money for the state that had been applied to ecclesiastical purposes had to be repaid. He scornfully referred the clergy thus robbed of their revenues to the blessedness of evangelical poverty. He also fomented as much as possible dissension in the church, favoured all sectaries and heretics, excluded Christians from all the higher, and afterwards from all the lower, civil and military offices, and loaded them on every occasion with reproach and shame, and by these means he actually induced many to apostatise. In order to discredit Christ’s prophecy in Matt. xxiv. 2, he resolved on the restoration of the Jewish temple at Jerusalem, but after having been begun it was destroyed by an earthquake. He excluded all Christian teachers from the public schools, and also forbade them in their own schools from explaining the classical writers who were objected to and contested by them only as godless; so that Christian boys and youths could obtain a higher classical education only in the pagan schools. By petty artifices he endeavoured to get Christian soldiers to take part, if only even seemingly, in the heathen sacrifices. Indeed at a later period in Antioch he was not ashamed to stoop to the mean artifice of Galerian (§ 22, 6) of sprinkling with sacrificial water the necessaries of life exposed in the public market, etc. On the other hand, he strove in every way to elevate and ennoble paganism. From Christianity he borrowed Benevolent Institutions, Church Discipline, Preaching, Public Service of Song, etc.; he gave many distinctions to the heathen priesthood, but required of them a strict discipline. He himself sacrificed and preached as Pontifex Maximus, and led a strictly ascetic, almost a cynically simple life. The ineffectiveness of his attempts and the daring, often even contemptuous, resistance of many Christian zealots embittered him more and more, so that there was now danger of bloody persecution when, after a reign of twenty months, he was killed from a javelin blow in a battle against the Persians in A.D. 363. Shortly before in answer to the scornful question of a heathen, “What is your Carpenter’s Son doing now?” it had been answered, “He is making a coffin for your emperor.” At a later period the story became current that Julian himself, when he received the deadly stroke, exclaimed, Tandem vicisti Galilæe! His military talents and military virtues had shed a glory around the throne of the Cæsars such as it had not known since the days of Marcus Aurelius, and yet his whole life’s struggle was and remained utterly fruitless and vain.115

§ 42.4. The Later Emperors.—After Julian’s death, Jovian, and then on his death in A.D. 364, Valentinian I. († 375), were chosen emperors by the army. The latter resigned to his brother Valens the empire of the East (A.D. 364–378). His son and successor Gratian (A.D. 375–383) at the wish of the army adopted his eldest half-brother of four years old, Valentinian II., as colleague in the empire of the West, and upon the death of Valens resigned the government of the West to the Spaniard Theodosius I., or the Great (A.D. 379–395), who, after the assassination of Valentinian II. in A.D. 392, became sole ruler. After his death his sons again divided the empire among them: Honorius († 423) took the West, Arcadius († 408) the East, and now the partitioned empire continued in this condition until the incursions of the barbarians had broken up the whole West Roman division (A.D. 476). Belisarius and Narses, the victorious generals of Justinian I., were the first to succeed, between A.D. 533–553, in conquering again North Africa and all Italy along with its islands. But in Italy the Byzantine empire from A.D. 569 was reduced in size from time to time by the Longobards, and in Africa from A.D. 665 by the Saracens, while even earlier, about A.D. 633, the Saracens had secured to themselves Syria, Palestine, and Egypt.—Julian’s immediate successors tolerated paganism for a time. It was, however, a very temporary respite. No sooner had Theodosius I. quieted in some measure political disorders, than he proceeded in A.D. 382 to accomplish the utter overthrow of paganism. The populace and the monks combined in destroying the temples. The rhetorician Libanius († 395) then addressed his celebrated discourse Περὶ τῶν ἱερῶν to the emperor; but the remaining temples were closed and the people were prohibited from visiting them. In Alexandria, under the powerful bishop Theophilus, there were bloody conflicts, in consequence of which the Christians destroyed the beautiful Serapeion in A.D. 391. In vain did the pagans look for the falling down of the heavens and the destruction of the earth; even the Nile would not once by causing blight and barrenness take vengeance on the impious. In the West, Gratian was the first of the emperors who declined the rank of pontifex maximus; he also deprived the heathen priests of their privileges, removed the foundations of the temple of Fiscus, and commanded that the altar of Victory should be taken away from the hall of the Senate in Rome. In vain did Symmachus, præfectus urbi, entreat for its restoration, if not “numinis” yet “nominis causa.” Valentinian II., urged on by Ambrose, sent back four times unheard the deputation that came about this matter. So soon as Theodosius I. became sole ruler the edicts were made more severe. On his entrance into Rome in A.D. 394 he addressed to the Roman Senate a severe lecture and called them to repentance. His sons, Honorius in the West and Arcadius in the East, followed the example of their father. Under the successor of the latter, Theodosius II. (A.D. 408–450), monks with imperial authority for the suppression of heathenism traversed the provinces, and in A.D. 448, in common with Valentinian III. (A.D. 425–455), the western emperor, he issued an edict which strictly enjoined the burning of all pagan polemical writings against Christianity, especially those of Porphyry “the crack-brained,” wherever they might be found. This period is also marked by deeds of bloody violence. The most horrible of these was the murder of the noble pagan philosopher Hypatia, the learned daughter of Theon the mathematician, at Alexandria in A.D. 415. Officially paganism may be regarded as no longer existent. Branded long even before this as the religion of the peasants (such is the derivation of the word paganism), it was now almost wholly confined to remote rural districts. Its latest and solitary stronghold was the University of Athens raised to the summit of its fame under Proclus (§ 24, 2). Justinian I. (A.D. 527–565) decreed the suppression of this school in A.D. 529. Its teachers fled into Persia, and there laid the first foundations of the later literary period of Islam under the ruling family of the Abassidæ at Bagdad (§ 65, 2). This was the death hour of heathenism in the Roman empire. The Mainottæ in the mountains of the Peloponnesus still maintained their political independence and the heathen religion of their fathers down to the 9th century. In the Italian islands, too, of Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily, there were still many heathens even in the time of Gregory the Great († 604).116

§ 42.5. Heathen Polemics and Apologetics.—Julian’s controversial treatise Κατὰ Γαλιλαίων λόγοι, in 3 bks. according to Cyril, in 7 bks. according to Jerome, is known only from the reply of Cyril of Alexandria (§ 47, 6) which follows it section by section, the rest of the answers to it having been entirely lost. Of Cyril’s book only the first ten λόγοι have come down to us in a complete state, and from these we are able almost wholly to restore the first book of Julian’s treatise. Only fragments of the second decade of Cyril’s work are extant, and not even so much of the third, so that of Julian’s third book we may be said to know nothing.117 Julian represented Christianity as a deteriorated Judaism, but Christolatry and the worship of martyrs as later falsifications of the doctrine of Christ.—The later advocates of heathenism, Libanius and Symmachus, were content with claiming toleration and religious freedom. But when from the 5th century, under the influence of the barbarians, signs of the speedy overthrow of the Roman empire multiplied, the heathen polemics assumed a bolder attitude, declaring that this was the punishment of heaven for the contempt of the old national religion, under which the empire had flourished. Such is the standpoint especially of the historians Eunapius and Zosimus. But history itself refuted them more successfully than the Christian apologists; for even these barbarous peoples passed over in due course to Christianity, and vied with the Roman emperors in their endeavours to extirpate heathenism. In the 5th century, the celebrated Neo-Platonist Proclus wrote “eighteen arguments (ἐπιχειρήματα) against the Christians” in vindication of the Platonic doctrine of the eternity of the world and in refutation of the Christian doctrine of creation. The Christian grammarian John Philoponus (§ 47, 11) answered them in an exhaustive and elaborate treatise, which again was replied to by the philosopher Simplicius, one of the best teachers in the pagan University of Athens.—The dialogue Philopatris, “the Patriot,” included among the works of Lucian of Samosata, but certainly not composed by him, is a feeble imitation of the famous scoffer, in which the writer declares that he can no longer fitly swear at the Olympic gods with their many unsavoury loves and objectionable doings, and with a satirical reference to Acts xvii. 23 recommends for this purpose “the unknown God at Athens,” whom he further scurrilously characterizes as ὑψιμέδων θεὸς, υἵος πατρὸς, πνεῦμα ἐκ πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον ἓν ἐκ τριῶν καὶ ἐξ ἑνὸς τρία (§ 50, 1, 7). Finally he tells of some closely shaven men (§ 45, 1) who were treated as liars, because, having in consequence of a ten days’ fast and singing had a vision foreboding ill to their fatherland, their prophecy was utterly discredited by the arrival of an account of the emperor’s successes in the war against the Persians. The impudence with which the orthodox Christianity and the Nicene orthodox formula are sneered at, as well as the allusions to the spread of monasticism and a victorious war against the Persians, fix the date of the dialogue in the reign of Julian, or rather, since the writer would scarcely have had Julian’s approval in his scoffing at the gods of Olympus, in the time of the Arian Valens (§ 50, 4). But since the overthrow of Egypt and Crete is spoken of in this treatise, Niebuhr has put its date down to the time of the Emperor Nicephoras Phocas (A.D. 963–969), understanding by Persians the Saracens and by Scythians the Bulgarians.

§ 42.6. The religion of the Hypsistarians in Cappadocia was, according to Gregory Nazianzen, whose father had belonged to the sect, a blending of Greek paganism with bald Jewish monotheism, together with the oriental worship of fire and the heavenly bodies, with express opposition to the Christian doctrine of the trinity. Of a similar nature were the vagaries of the Euphemites, “Praise singers,” in Asia, who were also called Messalians, “Petitioners,” or Euchites, and in Africa bore the name of Cœlicolæ.