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Three

Conversions

“Jesus Christ, you who Clotilda maintains to be the Son of the living God … I beg the glory of your help. If you will give me victory over my enemies … then I will believe in you and I will be baptized in your name. I have called upon my own gods, but, as I see only too clearly, they have no intention of helping me. I therefore cannot believe that they possess any power, for they do not come to the assistance of those who trust in them. I now call upon you. I want to believe in you, but I must first be saved from my enemies.” ¹

Clovis, King of the Franks

The dream confirmed his deepest desires. As a little boy, he had wandered off from his parents and gone missing for several days. But to the surprise of his pagan parents, he was found inside a Christian church. The curious boy, son of a Roman soldier stationed in Gaul, had been enamored with the stories he heard of Christian monks and their unique lifestyle. Now, after giving half his military-issued cloak to a freezing beggar who had been ignored by other passersby, the young soldier received confirmation in a dream that his future would be guided by service to the poor as a Christian. However, the young man would soon learn that what he wanted to do was not exactly what the Lord required of him. He found solace as a hermit, but his holiness attracted attention. When the venerable bishop of Poitiers died, the people demanded the former-soldier-turned-monk become their bishop. Beloved by his people, the reluctant bishop spread the Gospel throughout the countryside and also became one of the most beloved saints in the history of the Church. The shrine of his relics at Tours was one of the most visited during the Middle Ages. Saint Martin is a shining example of the amazing saints who illuminate this era in Church history, which produced two conversions that shaped the history of Western civilization.

Victory at the Bridge

Diocletian’s dream of an Empire free from political turmoil and civil war was dead. His abdication in 305 pushed the Empire into another period of instability, as men, empowered by their legions, fought for political supremacy. Constantius, the western Augustus, was garrisoned with his soldiers in Britain and fell ill. He desired to see his son, Constantine, once more before he died, but the young man was in Nicomedia in the east and under close watch by Galerius, who was paranoid that the son of Constantius would usurp him. When news reached Constantine that his father was ill, he made plans to leave the imperial palace. When the time was right, Constantine fled Nicomedia and began the long and arduous journey to Britain. He reached the garrison in time to see his father before his death, but was surprised that when Constantius died, contrary to the established policy of the tetrarchy, the British legions named him Augustus. When news of Constantine’s proclamation as emperor reached Rome, another son of an emperor was angry. Maxientius, the son-in-law of Galerius and the son of the former emperor Maximian (who had abdicated in the same year as Diocletian), believed he should rule the Western Empire. Maxientius conspired with the Praetorian Guard and was proclaimed Emperor. The Western Empire now contained two men, with large numbers of troops, claiming to be emperor. The explosive situation needed swift resolution.

Constantine held a council of war in Britain, where he asked the advice of his generals. Should they march on Rome and engage Maxientius’s forces in combat to determine who would rule the Western Empire, or should they bide their time and gather additional forces? The generals advised the more cautious military strategy, but, recognizing that fortune favors the brave, Constantine decided to leave Britain, march through Gaul into Italy, and attack Rome — a risky campaign, but one that, if victorious, would give Constantine the imperial purple.

Constantine’s army left their garrison in Roman Britain and sailed across the channel to Gaul. On their march through Gaul, they witnessed a miracle that changed the future of the Empire forever. Constantine and his soldiers saw a cross mysteriously appear in the sky with puzzling phrase in hoc signo vinces, “In this sign, you will conquer.”² Constantine was not a Christian, though he was aware of the group and, no doubt, had Christians in his army. Constantine’s father had not vigorously enforced Diocletian’s persecution edits in the west, so Constantine was, at the least, not ill disposed to the Church. It is believed that Constantine had a strong devotion to only one pagan god, Sol, making him already semi-monotheistic in his religious views. He came to believe the sign was indication of the Christian God’s favor in the coming battle with Maxientius, and in order to show his belief, he ordered his soldiers to paint the symbol of the Chi-Rho — the monogram formed from the first two letters of the Greek word for Christ — on their shields.

This Christian symbol became extremely popular after Constantine’s usage. Reproductions of it are found everywhere in the Roman world from the fourth century onward (indeed, it is still used in Catholic churches today and on liturgical vestments). The adoption of a Christian symbol by a Roman army marked a dramatic turning point in the history of the Church. The Roman army had been the instrument of state persecution of the Church, and less than a decade previously, had killed thousands of Christians. Now, troops from this same organization marched to battle with the sign of Christ on their shields. The victor of the coming fight could lay sole claim to the western throne.

The Battle of Milvian Bridge

It was October 28, 312, six years to the day of his accession to imperial power, and Maxentius felt lucky. News of Constantine’s forces approaching the city had reached him. He believed victory was certain because the pagan priests had told him the enemy of the Romans would die this day. Naturally, Maxentius believed this prophecy referred to the upstart Constantine and his legions from Britain. (He should have realized he was not popular among the people of Rome, and perhaps the prophecy was applicable to him.) Confident of victory, Maxentius defied sound military tactics. Instead of remaining within the fortified city walls and enduring a siege, he marched his army out of the city in order to engage Constantine in open combat. Because the stone bridge in that area, known as the Milvian Bridge (from whence the battle received its name), had been partially destroyed to prevent its use by the invading army, Maxentius’s forces crossed the Tiber on a wooden pontoon bridge. Constantine and his soldiers were also confident of victory, despite being outnumbered, because of their miraculous vision. Maxentius arrayed his forces too close to the river, which hampered their battlefield maneuvers. As it became apparent that the combat favored Constantine’s army, Maxentius ordered a retreat. But the wooden pontoon bridge collapsed under the assembled weight of the heavy cavalry and infantry, and Maxentius was thrown into the Tiber, where he drowned. His body was later recovered, decapitated, and taken into the city by Constantine as a sign of his victory. The Roman populace hailed Constantine as a deliverer and recognized him as the sole ruler of the Western Empire. In a move that signaled the dawn of a new era, Constantine did not go to the Capitol to offer the traditional sacrifice to the pagan gods in thanksgiving for his victory.

Constantine and the Church

Constantine attributed his victory over Maxentius to the intercession of the Christian God and, as a result, he favored the Church. Miraculously, the Faith went from a persecuted sect, hounded by the Roman emperors, to the favored organization of a Roman emperor! Constantine even embraced the Faith, receiving instruction under the spiritual guidance of bishop Hosius of Cordova (c. 257–358). Constantine became a catechumen, but he did not receive baptism until on his deathbed in 337.³ Although he was truly grateful for his victory over Maxentius, Constantine’s ambition had not been sated by becoming the western emperor, and he viewed the Church as an institution he could use to bring unity and reform to the Empire. Constantine’s vision of the Church and his involvement in her internal affairs became known as caesaro-papism — a situation where the emperor reigned supreme in both the temporal and spiritual realms. Caesaro-papism became the norm in the eastern half of the Empire, but not in the western half, and as such the development of the Church differed in the two parts of the Empire.

Constantine legislated Christian morality: crucifixion as a form of punishment was outlawed, gladiatorial games were suspended, temple prostitution was ended, and chastity laws were enacted. He also outlawed the ancient pagan pater familias custom. In this practice, the father of the household (which included immediate family members as well as all servants) was able to reject any child born in his household by refusing to hold the infant after birth. The rejected infant was then exposed outside the city walls and left to die. Although Constantine favored the Church, paganism continued to exist, and Constantine served in the traditional imperial role as Pontifex Maximus, or “bridge-builder,” between the various cults. However, his focus was on the Church. His favoritism extended to granting the Lateran palace, property of his wife, Fausta, to the bishop of Rome and building a church on that location for the pope, which became (and still is) the pope’s cathedral diocesan church, known as Saint John Lateran. The emperor made Sunday a legal holiday on which government offices and businesses were closed. Additionally, the Church was exempt from taxation and received funding from the state. Constantine also reshaped the imperial bureaucracy by appointing Christians to positions of importance as counsels and prefects.⁴ Constantine pursued these policies, seeing himself as “God’s special servant and attendant and friend and representative.”⁵ Although Constantine favored the Church and took instruction in the Christian faith after his victory at Milvian Bridge, there was a dark side to the man that was intent on personal ambition, power, and control. Constantine was a “coldly intelligent organizer, a man of action who possessed the advantage of being absolutely tireless. [He was] dedicated to his own personal success and despotically determined at all costs to achieve it.”⁶

The Donatist Controversy

After each major persecution by the Roman Empire against the Church, two groups formed: the rigorists and the laxists. Rigorists believed that the lapsi should not be readmitted to communion after the persecution ended. Instead, they should be excommunicated, and if the lapsi were clergy, they should forfeit their ecclesiastical offices. This inflexible position embraced the heretical view that lapsed clergy could not validly celebrate the sacraments. The rigorist position was widely held in North Africa, a site of intense persecution (especially under Diocletian), and caused a challenging problem for the Church in the early fourth century. In some ways, rigorist thinking was understandable, since those who had suffered during the imperial persecutions looked with great suspicion on those who lapsed. The loss of a loved one as a martyr to the imperial authorities could easily foster feelings of anger or resentment toward the lapsi. Laxists believed that lapsi should undergo a period of penance before readmittance to the Church, but did not embrace the rigorist beliefs.

Donatus, a man “with a genius for organization and propaganda,” was one of the leaders of the rigorist movement in North Africa.⁷ The rigorist/laxist issue came to the forefront in the year 312 when Caecilian, the bishop of Carthage, was ordained. The rigorists objected to Caecilian’s ordination, holding that it was null and void because one of his episcopal consecrators, Felix, was supposedly a member of the lapsi. Allegedly, Felix had handed over the Scriptures during the Great Persecution, but the charge was false. Nonetheless, the taint of being a lapsi hovered over Felix; the rigorists refused to recognize Caecilian’s ordination, and elected Donatus bishop. The scandal of two bishops in Carthage produced a schism in the Church in Africa. In an effort to solve the situation, those who favored Donatus (known as Donatists) appealed to the emperor to solve the conundrum.

In an example of caesaro-papsim, Constantine accepted the case because he feared the loss of God’s favor and the ascendancy of a rival if he did not act. Constantine wanted to use the Church to foster unity under his leadership of the Empire and would not tolerate disunity in the Church.⁸ Eventually, Constantine ruled in favor of Caecilian, much to the chagrin of the Donatists, who appealed the decision. The emperor turned the appeal over to Pope Miltiades (r. 311–314), who convened a council in Rome to discuss the matter. Donatus traveled to Rome and presented his case, but the assembled clerics were not convinced, and, once more, Caecilian’s ordination was held to be valid. The Donatists refused to accept Rome’s decision and continued to cause problems in Carthage. Their continued resistance caused such agitation for Constantine that the emperor reopened the case. He called for a group of bishops to meet at Arles to once more hear the Donatists’ arguments. The local council of Arles met, with forty-six bishops in attendance, and once more upheld the validity of Caecilian’s consecration. They also condemned and excommunicated the Donatists in the hopes of ending the controversy. Unfortunately, the Donatists persisted in their rigorist views and heretical teachings, which impacted Church unity for the next century.

The Edict of Milan

Constantine knew that, despite his favoritism toward the Catholic Church, she still did not have a legal right to exist in the Empire due to Nero’s law instituted nearly three hundred years earlier. Constantine remedied that situation when he met with the eastern Emperor Licinius in Rome at the marriage of Licinius to Constantine’s sister, Constantia. The two emperors issued a joint declaration on religion, granting “to Christians and others, full authority to observe that religion which each preferred.”⁹ Although the edict allowed for religious toleration of all faiths, the co-emperors clearly specified Christians in the document: “We have given to those Christians free and unrestricted opportunity of religious worship.”¹⁰ Moreover, Christian property taken during the Great Persecution under Diocletian was restored in the edict. This imperial action legalized the Faith and allowed the Church to exist as a legally recognized corporation within the Empire. Paganism was allowed to continue, but the Church was placed on equal legal footing with the pagan cults. Most importantly, Christians were free to publicly worship without fear of government persecution. Just a decade earlier, such an act on the part of a Roman emperor, let alone both emperors, would have been unthinkable and improbable — but through the miracle of the cross in the sky and Constantine’s victory over Maxentius, the unthinkable and improbable became reality.

Sole Emperor

With the Edict of Milan, Christians in the Roman Empire assumed the horrible days of persecution were over. Unfortunately, for the Christians in the eastern provinces, this was not the case. Licinius had co-issued the edict with Constantine, but he was no friend of the Church. Instead, his childhood friendship with Galerius, the initiator of the Great Persecution, was the defining relationship in his life. Several years after the edict of toleration at Milan, Licinius initiated a persecution of Christians in his territory and engaged in conflict with Constantine over who would rule the Empire. After a few battles and an uneasy truce, the forces of Licinius and Constantine finally clashed decisively at the Battle of Adrianople on July 3, 324. Licinius lost and, with the remnant of his army, retreated to the town of Byzantium. A few months later, in the final battle of the civil war, Constantine overwhelmingly defeated Licinius, who begged for his life. Constantine allowed his brother-in-law to live, no doubt influenced by the pleadings of his sister, but the reprieve was short-lived. Within a year, Constantine ordered Licinius’s execution. The death of Licinius and the supremacy of Constantine’s army produced an event not seen in the Empire for the last generation: a sole emperor.

Constantine’s desire to rule a united empire had come to pass, and he endeavored to build a worthy monument to the accomplishment of that goal. He spared no expense to build a magnificent new city on the site of the town of Byzantium. Several years of construction produced a city so vast and massive that Saint Jerome would later remark, “in clothing Constantinople the rest of the world was left naked.”¹¹ The city, now the capital seat of the Empire, was consecrated in the year 330 as “New Rome.” Later, the city would take on the name of its founder and be known as Constantinople.¹²

Heresy

The Church had confronted heresy in her first centuries, but the impact had been limited. Now that the emperor favored the Church and converts came from all strata of society, the danger of heresy and its impact were compounded. False teaching destroyed communion and threatened the security of the social order, necessitating a response from secular government. Unfortunately, a heresy that began in the early fourth century proved a “pernicious attack” that would consume the Church for the next five hundred years. The Church assembled in ecumenical councils to combat the spread of heresy and to define her teachings,¹³ mostly in response to the question of who Jesus is — or, more precisely, what words should be used to describe who Jesus is, and what relationship he has to the Father and the Holy Spirit. Theologians, priests, and monks sought to answer the question, but their teachings were not always in conformity with the apostolic faith.

Arius the Heretic

As a priest in Alexandria, Egypt, Arius had seen firsthand the impact of the recent wave of converts resulting from imperial favoritism of the Church. He knew that many educated Romans steeped in Greco-Roman philosophy and logic struggled with the Church’s teachings — namely, the Trinity, and the concept of Jesus as both God and man — because these posed paradoxes for the Roman mind. He tried to explain these teachings in a book entitled Thalia. Arius’s teachings became very popular and were even set to music as a memory aid. (The tune used was from an old drinking song, which helped even the uneducated sailors and stevedores of the bustling port remember them.)¹⁴ As a master propagandist graced with a dynamic personality, Arius spread his teachings throughout the diocese. They were soon embraced in other areas of the Empire as well. Arius tried to solve the question of who Jesus is in relationship to the Father by declaring that God was not always Father, and there was a time when the Son was not in existence but, rather, had been brought into existence by the Father. This teaching appeared logical, but makes Christ into a creature (albeit the first and most perfect creature of the Father, but a creature nonetheless). Arius argued that “the Son who is tempted, suffers and dies, however exalted he may be, is not to be equal to the immutable Father.”¹⁵ Arius demoted the Holy Spirit by teaching that the Spirit was also created and was the second most perfect creature. Arius simplified the Trinity by exalting the Father and teaching that the Son and Holy Spirit were creatures of the Father, not coeternal with him. This made the doctrine of the Trinity more palatable to the educated Roman converts, but by making the Son and Holy Spirit creatures, Arius developed a “clever attempt to save paganism, to allow men to go on worshipping a creature rather than the Creator.”¹⁶ Bishop Alexander quickly identified the heretical nature of Arius’s teachings, condemning them in 318, and also ordered Arius to cease their propagation. However, the popularity of the teachings brought Arius recognition and fame — and, vain man that he was, he refused to acquiesce to his bishop. News of the theological squabble reached Constantine, who could not tolerate internal ecclesial dissension. The emperor wrote a letter to Arius and Alexander, urging them to reconcile. The emperor remonstrated the pair for even raising such questions in the first place, which he thought were provoked by idleness, made for the “sake of a philosophical exercise,” and were brought “imprudently to the ears of the people.”¹⁷ Constantine demanded an end to the bickering so that he could have “back peaceful nights and days without care [so] that I may keep some pleasure in the pure light and joy of a tranquil life.”¹⁸ Unfortunately for Constantine and the Church, Arius’s teachings did not vanish; they spread rapidly, and the emperor would deal with this issue for the rest of his life.

Arius’s teachings were popular and widespread partly because the Empire was at peace. Tranquil times allow people to engage in activities normally considered superfluous during times of stress and difficulty. Many newly converted Romans were educated in the art of rhetoric and debate, and they joyfully engaged in the discussion over Arius’s opinion that Jesus was the first most perfect creature of God. Some even used Scripture to support their arguments. Saint Jerome (347–420) later bemoaned the use of personal interpretation of the Word of God contrary to the teaching authority of the Church: “Builders, carpenters, workers in metal and wood, websters, and fullers, makers of anything, cannot become an expert without a teacher; physicians are trained by physicians. The art of the Scripture is the only art which is claimed by all.”¹⁹

Arianism is an example of a top-down heretical movement, meaning that the higher elements of Roman society — that is, the nobility, army, parts of the episcopacy — embraced the newfangled idea while the general populace remained orthodox.²⁰ The Roman nobility believed Arianism was more sophisticated than the orthodox beliefs of the masses. Arius provided the well-educated, class-conscious, newly converted nobles another way to separate themselves from the common and poor people, who remained solidly Catholic. Arianism’s rapid spread was also due to the Roman army. The army, like the nobility, prided itself on being different from the masses of Roman society, and was central to the life of the Empire, even though the legionaries numbered just a fraction of the population. The army embraced Arianism. Since the troops were stationed across the Empire, Arius’s teachings gained footing in numerous parts of the world. Acceptance of Arianism became so widespread that even bishops began to agree with it. If Arianism had “prevailed, the whole nature of the [Christian] religion would have been transformed. It would not only have been transformed, it would have failed, and with its failure would have followed the breakdown of that civilization which the Catholic Church was to build up.”²¹ The attack on the Faith by the North African priest demanded an answer.

The Council of Nicaea

Constantine, desiring peace, invited all the bishops in the Empire to the city of Nicaea to discuss Arius’s heresy. Nicaea was an easily accessible town, connected by imperial roads to all the provinces, and only twenty-five miles from the imperial palace at Nicomedia. In order to facilitate maximum episcopal participation, Constantine paid all the bishops’ travel expenses. Due to Nicaea’s location, most of the assembled bishops came from the east, but over ten western bishops, including Constantine’s close friend, Hosius of Cordova, and the papal legates Vitus and Vincent of Capua, attended. Pope Sylvester I (r. 314–335) approved the calling of this council by the emperor. Tradition holds that 318 total bishops were present.²² Hosius, along with the papal legates, presided over the proceedings, and Constantine attended the first and last sessions of the council. One attendee noted, “The council looked like an assembled army of martyrs.”²³ Many of the assembled bishops had suffered during the Great Persecution. Hosius had been a confessor; other bishops had been imprisoned, sent to the mines, or had gone into hiding. Many bishops had suffered horrible tortures, including the loss of limbs and the gouging out of eyes. Only twenty years previously, an emperor had tried with all his might to eradicate the Catholic Church. Now, an emperor had called the bishops together to settle a doctrinal controversy and achieve peace and unity in the Church and Empire.

Arius was invited to the council to present his teachings to the assembled bishops, some of whom were active supporters. Numerous other attendees were sympathizers, known as “semi-Arians,” who wanted compromise and peace above all else. After Arius’s presentation, the council fathers debated his teachings. Some, including Eusebius of Nicomedia, defended his position. Ultimately, the bishops decided to develop a written statement of belief, but agreement on terminology proved elusive. The most interesting aspect of the council is perhaps the fact that the fiercest debate centered not on whether Arius’s teachings were orthodox (they clearly were not) but on what word should be used to describe the relationship of Jesus with the Father. The western bishops preferred the word homoousios (in Greek; or consubstantial, from the Latin), which meant the Logos (the Word of God, the Son) had the same nature as the Father but was not the same person. The term was not found in Scripture, but it was favored in order to force the Arians to deny Arius’s central heretical proposition — that the Logos was a created being of the Father.

Unfortunately, the word did not have the same meaning in the east as in the west; it had been condemned in the east as heretical in the third century. The worldly Paul of Samosata (200–275) had been the bishop of Antioch and a proponent of the heresy known as Modalistic Monarchianism. This belief emphasizes the oneness of God to the point where the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are modes of the one God, not separate, yet united persons in the Trinity.²⁴ Paul used the term homoousios (consubstantial) to deny the distinct divine personality of the Son, indicating that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the same person. A local council of bishops in Antioch in 268 had condemned Paul of Samosata and the word homoousios. Understandably, many of the eastern bishops present at Nicaea bristled at the use of homoousios, even with the western understanding of the word. The Semi-Arians preferred the term homoiousios, which meant “of like substance,” but this term was rejected by the orthodox, since it did not clearly and definitively indicate that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are co-eternal and of the same substance. Eventually, homoousios was used in the final written statement of faith developed at the council.

The statement of belief, known as the Nicene Creed, was written and voted on by the bishops, who overwhelmingly approved it (316 of the 318 bishops voted in favor).²⁵ Hosius of Cordova was the first whose signature was affixed to the document, followed by Vitus and Vincent, the papal legates. Two bishops, Theonas and Secundus, refused to sign and were sent into exile — a momentous event, as it marked the first time in Church history that a secular punishment (exile) was applied to an ecclesiastical crime (heresy).²⁶

The council fathers also discussed other matters while assembled at Nicaea, including the dating of Easter and a series of discipline canons. The question of when Easter should be celebrated dominated the early Church and was a source of friction between the western and eastern halves of the Church.²⁷ The eastern dating method, which followed the practice of the Apostle John, celebrated the feast on the fourteenth day of the Jewish month of Nisan, regardless of the day of the week. Those who followed this dating method were known as Quatrodecimans (from the Latin for “fourteen,” quattuordecim). The western method moved Easter to the first Sunday after the first full moon of the vernal equinox, in order to clearly link the celebration with the day of the week of the first Easter. The bishops ruled at Nicaea that the western method would be used universally throughout the Church so that all Christians would celebrate the feast on the same day.

The discipline canons of Nicaea were enforced throughout the universal Church — the first time in Church history this had occurred. The twenty total canons at Nicaea dealt with clerical behavior and liturgical practice. Some examples of the Nicene canons include:

• Members of the clergy must not keep in their house a woman who is not their mother, sister, aunt, or a woman above all suspicion.

• Clerics who practice usury (loaning money at exorbitant interest) are to be deposed.

• Deacons are not to sit with the priests and are not to distribute the Eucharist to them.

• The ancient custom must be observed of praying while standing and not kneeling on Sundays and in the fifty days after Easter.²⁸

The last day of the council coincided with the twentieth anniversary of Constantine’s accession of imperial power (as proclaimed by the legions in Britain). In celebration of this milestone and of the completion of their conciliar efforts, the emperor held a banquet for the bishops. Constantine believed the council had achieved peace and unity in the Church and Empire.

The Beginnings of Monasticism

During the Roman persecutions, many Christians witnessed to their faith by shedding their blood, the ultimate price for refusing to repudiate their beliefs. Now that the Faith was legalized and the Church was recognized as a corporate institution in the Empire, “red martyrdom” was temporarily at an end. Christians still desired to give their lives totally to Christ in a radical and unique manner, however, so a lifestyle of self-sacrifice and renunciation developed in the form of monasticism — a word derived from the Greek monachos, meaning “solitary.”²⁹ Christian monks practiced what became known as “white martyrdom” — a complete self-sacrifice and renunciation of the things of the world, dying to self in order to grow closer to Christ and the Church. The founder of monasticism is usually identified as Saint Anthony the Abbot (250–356), an Egyptian Christian from a wealthy family in Alexandria who, at the age of nineteen, gave his wealth to the poor and began to live an ascetical life. He lived a strict penitential life in the midst of the bustling city and was engaged in spiritual combat against demons for nearly fifteen years. At the age of thirty-five, he left the city and spent the next seven decades in the wild, only returning to Alexandria twice: the first time to encourage his fellow Christians to remain strong in the midst of Diocletian’s Great Persecution, and later to support his bishop, Athanasius, in the fight against the Arians.³⁰ In the desert, Anthony lived a solitary, silent, and penitential life, sustaining his health on a daily meal of bread, seasoned with salt, and water. He did not eat meat or drink wine. His day was spent in prayer.³¹ Although his life appeared lonely, Anthony sought solitude in order to grow closer to God. Unfortunately for Anthony, this way of life attracted attention, and soon a large following of men appeared in the desert seeking to emulate him.³² Anthony wanted to remain solitary with the Lord, but he realized he had an obligation to assist these men in some way. He organized communal times of prayer, song, and spiritual conferences, while maintaining the eremetical environment.

Another hermit who developed an early form of cenobitic monasticism (monks living in community) was Saint Pachomius (290–348). Pachomius’s first monastic community, established in the year 318, soon grew to over a hundred monks. He realized that a monastery of that size was burdensome, so he created a more manageable structure. Pachomius divided his community into a complex of buildings with individual houses, wherein no more than forty monks had individual cells. Each monk wore the same simple habit. Eventually, Pachomius founded nine other similar monasteries. He composed the first monastic rule, which provided for a life of daily spiritual exercises for the monks, with regular times for prayer, work, and communal meals. Upon his death in the mid-fourth century, Pachomius’s monasteries housed thousands of monks.

While Anthony and Pachomius are credited with establishing the first forms of monasticism, other groups of Christians, especially in Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, practiced very different ways of holy living. There arose some monastic extremists, including such groups as the Dendrites (from the Greek dendron, meaning “tree”), who escaped the world by living in trees and practiced extreme forms of asceticism. Another group, the Adamites, believed that through holy living they could regain Adam’s original innocence in the Garden before the Fall, so they walked around naked. Perhaps the most famous are the Stylites, or “pillar hermits,” who lived on platforms on top of pillars. These men practiced extreme fasting, living on the contributions of passersby who would put food and other necessities in a bucket, which had been lowered down by a rope. The most well-known Stylite was Saint Simeon (d. 459). Annoyed with numerous people disturbing his hermetical life to seek guidance on holy living, he ascended a twenty-eight-foot platform, where he lived for thirty-six years!

Although many monastic groups sought to live out the Christian life in a unique manner, one man would be known as the “Father of Eastern Monasticism,” Saint Basil the Great (329–378). Basil came from a holy family; his grandfather had been martyred, and his grandmother, parents, and siblings are also saints. One of his brothers was also a Church Father and extraordinary theologian, Saint Gregory of Nyssa (335–394). Despite the sanctity of his family, Basil embraced the world in his early life. Undoubtedly, the prayers of his parents brought about his eventual complete conversion. Basil dedicated his life to God by becoming a monk, which he believed would help him fulfill the Christian vocation to embrace “likeness to God as far as possible.”³³ Basil wanted to live the monastic life with all excellence, since “mediocrity brings the Christian faith into discredit.”³⁴ So, he founded a new community of monks whose lives were governed by one rule, so that they all could pursue holiness in a common life.

Basil’s rule contributed two important developments to monasticism: the novitiate and organized community life. Basil recognized that new members who wished to join the monastic community should undergo a period of testing and initiation to determine if the monastic life suited them, and if they truly belonged in the community. If a novice was not able to live peacefully in accordance with the rule, then he was not allowed to permanently join the group. Basil wanted the monks to be in communion, rather than remaining a group of disparate hermits who occasionally gathered for certain times or events. He restricted the number of monks living in community to no more than forty and created a life centered on a spirit of moderation, which was balanced between an active and contemplative lifestyle. Basil organized times of common prayer for his monks. He stressed the need for spiritual direction and proper holy living, including the practice of celibacy. He emphasized living a simple life of moderate food consumption and wearing no ostentatious clothing. Basil even forbade his monks from loud laughing, as it would disturb the prayerful atmosphere of the community, although smiling was permitted.³⁵

Basil also created a lasting societal organization to care for the sick and dying — the hospital. Because the first monks were separated from major urban areas, they had to care for their own sick and developed a rudimentary healthcare system. In some monasteries, a separate building, the infirmary, was constructed to care for the sick members of the community. Basil was aware of early monastic health care but wanted to improve upon it by providing a safe place for all the ill, injured, and dying to receive proper medical treatment by trained professionals, offered at no charge.³⁶ Basil was able to support his hospital by utilizing his family’s wealthy connections with the imperial government. The land for the hospital was donated to Basil by the state; he convinced the provincial governor to grant tax-exempt status to the new institution by highlighting the public impact of the hospital, which would care for the sick and poor and provide jobs in the local economy. The new health complex was known as the Basileias, in honor of Basil, and became the model for the Byzantine healthcare system for centuries.³⁷ Basil was known as “the Great” during his lifetime because his contemporaries appreciated his singular brilliance and holy efforts.

Arianism Continues

Although the Council of Nicaea had definitively condemned Arius and his false teachings, many eastern bishops voiced their displeasure with the council’s work, especially with the use of the word homoousios. These bishops had signed the Creed, despite their misgivings and Semi-Arian leanings, but, after the council, worked to undermine the orthodox teaching by gaining favor with Constantine and persecuting the orthodox bishops. Eusebius of Nicomedia, one of the leading Semi-Arians, formulated a plan to restore Arius to communion, spread his teachings, and rid the Church of the supporters of Nicaea. He influenced the emperor to allow Arius an audience, wherein the condemned cleric made an ambiguous profession of faith that did not contain the word homoousios and was not a clear acceptance of the orthodox faith confirmed at Nicaea. Constantine was no theologian and did not understand the subtleties, so he ordered Arius’s bishop to reinstate him to active priestly ministry. This exercise of caesaro-papism proved disastrous for the Church — “whenever Constantine meddled in Church affairs, he only made matters worse.”³⁸ The bishop of Arius’s home diocese (Alexandria, Egypt) was a strong supporter of Nicaea and had been present at the council as a deacon assistant to the original combatant of Arius, Bishop Alexander. This new bishop, Athanasius, refused to obey the imperial order.

Athanasius — Defender of Orthodoxy

More than likely, the young bishop of Alexandria never dreamed that, one day, he would be alone against his brother bishops in the fight to preserve Nicene orthodoxy in the east. Happily, Athanasius (297–373) possessed the mind and fortitude to tangle with the impious Arians. He was a talented theologian, known for his treatise on the Incarnation, in which he wrote that God “was made man so that we might be made God.”³⁹ The redheaded, blue-eyed bishop loved the people of his diocese immensely and, as a result of the Arian conflict, would suffer much for them.

Eusebius of Nicomedia planned to attack the Nicene bishops by pressuring Constantine to depose them for secular reasons. The Arians accused Athanasius of committing murder and sorcery, concocting a bizarre plot around the bishop Arsenius. The Arians whisked Arsenius into hiding. They accused Athanasius of killing Arsenius and mutilating the body by cutting off his right hand, which they said he would use in acts of sorcery. The Arians went so far as to produce a blackened mummified hand as proof.⁴⁰ Athanasius became aware of the Arian plot when his friend, Governor Archelaus, found Arsenius hiding in Tyre. Archelaus arrested Arsenius secretly so that the Arians could be denounced in a public setting. The local council of Tyre in 335 provided such a venue. The emperor was present to celebrate his thirtieth anniversary of imperial accession and the tenth anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. Among the conciliar business was the trial of Athanasius, who was present to answer the charges of the Arians. The mummified hand was presented as proof of Athanasius’s nefarious conduct. However, unbeknownst to the Arians, Athanasius and his supporters had brought Arsenius to the council disguised in a cloak. After the charges against Athanasius were presented, he was allowed time to make a defense. The embattled bishop of Alexandria asked his brother bishops if they knew Arsenius and would recognize him. When the assembly murmured agreement, Athanasius brought the cloaked figure before them, uncovered his head, and said: “Is this the right Arsenius? Is this the man I murdered? Is this the man [who I] mutilated after his murder by cutting off his right hand?” Athanasius then pulled off the cloak completely from Arsenius, pointed to the man’s two intact hands, and said to the Arians, “Let no one seek for a third hand, for man has received two hands from the Creator and no more.”⁴¹

The Arians were incensed that their plan against Athanasius had backfired. They rushed toward the Alexandrian prelate, screaming, spitting, and calling him possessed by the devil. They threatened Athanasius with bodily harm, but imperial officials escorted him out of the room. The Arian bishops then condemned and deposed him. As a result, Athanasius was forced into his first of five total exiles by numerous emperors, beginning with Constantine, for his adherence to the orthodox faith. He spent his exiles, which spanned nearly half of his time as bishop of Alexandria, in Gaul, Rome, and the Egyptian desert.⁴² Most of the laity in the east remained faithful, as did the monks, but Athanasius was almost alone among the eastern episcopacy in maintaining the Nicene faith. Athanasius’s efforts earned him the moniker “Defender of Orthodoxy,” and in all of Church history, “few more gifted men have ever lived.”⁴³

The End of the Heretic and the Emperor

A year after Athanasius’s exile to Gaul, Arius was in Constantinople and felt the urge to go to the bathroom. He left his attendant servant outside the public facility, but the servant soon heard shouting and screaming. He ran into the restroom and saw Arius dead on the ground, surrounded by his entrails.⁴⁴ The orthodox supporters of Nicaea took the death of Arius in the capital city as a sign. Even Constantine “is reported to have looked upon the event as a significant proof of the Nicene doctrine.”⁴⁵ Unfortunately, Arius’s death did not end belief in his teachings, and even the emperor’s newfound orthodoxy would not prove decisive. The following year, the emperor became gravely ill. Now in his sixties after a lifetime of ruling the Roman Empire, Constantine decided the time was right to receive baptism. He went to confession and traveled to Nicomedia, where he was baptized by the Arian sympathizer Eusebius of Nicomedia, becoming the first Roman emperor to receive the Sacraments of Initiation in the Catholic Church. He refused to discard his white baptismal gown, never again wearing the imperial purple.⁴⁶ This man who had witnessed the miracle of the cross on his way to the Milvian Bridge, who had favored and legalized the Catholic Church in the Roman Empire, passed to his eternal reward on Pentecost Sunday 337. At the time of the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312, Christians numbered only nine million, fifteen percent of the total imperial population. At the time of Constantine’s death, Christians comprised thirty percent of the population.⁴⁷ The Senate declared Constantine divine, the last time that honor was bestowed on an emperor. The purging of a dead emperor’s extended relatives by his immediate family was common after his death in order to cull the field of potential candidates for the throne. Constantine’s two brothers and his sister’s husband, along with three of his five nephews, were killed. The youngest of the surviving nephews, a young boy of six, would never forget the death of his family members. When Julian became emperor nearly twenty-five years later, he would use his power to take revenge on those he blamed for the killings — Christians.

The Empire was divided among the three sons of Constantine, who had been raised in the orthodox faith of Nicaea. Constantine II ruled Gaul, Britain, and Spain; Constantius II was given the eastern provinces; and Constans governed in Italy and Africa. However, this three-part arrangement did not last long. The brothers engaged in warfare against one another, and Constantine II was killed in 340 while fighting against Constans, who was then killed by assassins a decade later. In the year 350, Constantius II found himself sole emperor like his father, and reigned for twenty-four years. He married an Arian sympathizer who turned him toward that false teaching. Constantius II then began a systematic campaign against the adherents of the Nicene faith.

Persecution of the Orthodox

Constantius II, like his father, desired unity in the empire, and he pursued that end by persecuting bishops who supported Nicaea so that Arianism could unite the Church. Because most of the eastern bishops had already embraced the heresy, save the valiant and still living Saint Athanasius, Constantius II began his campaign in the west in 355 when he called a local council to meet at Milan. The council was called primarily to force the western bishops to condemn Athanasius and the word homoousios (consubstantial). The emperor ordered the assembled three hundred western bishops to sign the condemnation.⁴⁸ Although some bishops gave into the demands of the emperor, others held fast and refused. Dionysius, the bishop of Milan, refused to sign, and he was deposed by the emperor and replaced by an Arian bishop. Hilarius, a deacon who was vocal in his opposition to Arianism, was stripped, tied to a pillar, and flogged. Despite being a hundred years old, the venerable Hosius, who had presided at the Nicene proceedings, was arrested and tortured until he signed the condemnation of Athanasius. Vincent of Capua, one of the papal legates at Nicaea, was tricked into signing the condemnation by assurance that Arianism would also be condemned.⁴⁹ The council of Milan was a success for Constantius II; nearly half of the assembled bishops signed the condemnation of Athanasius. The bishops who refused were exiled. In order to ensure the complete eradication of the orthodox faith among the episcopacy in the west, Constantius II turned his attention to the Roman pontiff, Liberius (r. 352–366).

The pope was in a precarious position. He initially defended Athanasius, but severe imperial pressure was brought upon him to sign the condemnation. He was bribed with cash, but he threw it into the street.⁵⁰ Because he refused to sign, Liberius was seized in the middle of the night by imperial officials and sent to Thrace, while one of his deacons, Felix, was installed as an antipope. In exile, Liberius was threatened with death. After two years of overwhelming imperial pressure, he signed a condemnation of Athanasius that rejected both the words homoousios and homoiousios.⁵¹ After his signature, Liberius was allowed to return to Rome, where the people, who were likely unaware the pontiff had given in to the emperor, greeted him warmly. Constantius II’s persecution of the Church brought a scathing written rebuke from Athanasius, who compared the emperor to other nefarious enemies of the Church, such as Pharaoh in the Book of Exodus, Herod, and Pilate. Athanasius considered Constantius II a tool of Satan and a precursor of the Antichrist. Constantius II did not appreciate the criticism. He sent imperial troops to once more depose and exile the orthodox defender of Nicaea. An unqualified man, known as George the Pork Dealer, was made bishop of Alexandria, but the people rejected him and longed for the return of their saintly bishop. It would be another six years before Athanasius returned to his episcopal see in 362. Unfortunately, this hero of the Church was exiled twice more but returned home before he passed to his eternal reward in 373.

The Arian crisis continued to plague the Church after the death of the great defender of orthodoxy. Saint Basil the Great’s brother, Gregory of Nyssa, remarked, “Whenever you went to the money changer, to the butcher’s shop, or to the thermal baths, people asked you whether the Father is greater than the Son, or whether the Son proceeded from nothing!”⁵² A century later, Saint Jerome, commenting on the Arian crisis, wrote, “the whole world groaned when, to its astonishment, it discovered that it was Arian … the little ship of the apostles was in peril.”⁵³ The speed and widespread acceptance of Arianism was impressive. The Church was actively engaged in the Arian crisis for nearly fifty years, and its effects lasted for three centuries before finally being checked by heroic bishops, monks, and laity.

The Apostate Emperor

Julian was an angry child. His father, Julius, the half-brother of Constantine, had been murdered upon the emperor’s death, along with one of his sons (Julian’s half-brother), by Christian members of the imperial household; another half-brother was executed later in 354. Julian blamed the deaths of his family members on these Christians and later said, “There are no wild beasts so hostile to mankind as are most Christians in their hatred for each other.”⁵⁴ Sadly, the violent actions of Christians in Julian’s early life produced bitter fruit and persecution for the Church. Julian was baptized, but his family adhered to the Arian heresy, which clouded his understanding of the Catholic faith. After the death of his father, Julian was educated in Greek literature by a pagan tutor, who acted as a father figure for the impressionable young boy. Julian grew fond of pagan authors; at the age of twenty, he “embrace[d] paganism with enthusiasm.”⁵⁵

Julian’s political career began in 355 when Constantius II appointed him caesar of the west. He also married Constantius’s sister, Helena, the same year. Julian proved to be an effective administrator, streamlining bureaucracy and reducing taxes. He illustrated his military prowess by retaking Cologne in 356 from the barbarians and defeating a 35,000-man Alemanni army with only 13,000 troops at the Battle of Strasbourg in 357. The Persians were causing trouble in the eastern provinces, so Constantius launched a military campaign. The emperor, concerned about Julian’s successes, feared that the caesar might become too powerful. Constantius ordered Julian’s western legions to move east to fight the Persians. The intention of the emperor was obvious, as there were troops closer to the eastern provinces who were better rested than Julian’s legions in Germania. Julian’s men did not appreciate the emperor’s punitive orders, and rebelled by proclaiming Julian emperor. They made plans to march on Constantinople in order to install Julian as emperor, but before they reached the capital city, news arrived that Constantius II had died on November 3, 361. Julian was thirty years old and now reigned as Roman emperor. Julian’s reign lasted a brief eighteen months, but in that short period of time he left his mark on imperial and ecclesiastical history.

Julian’s singular focus after becoming emperor was the persecution of the Catholic Church, which he both hated and feared. He tried to nullify his baptism by engaging in the initiation rite for the cult of Cybele, an Anatolian goddess, which required bathing in bull’s blood.⁵⁶ Julian even wrote a book attacking the Faith entitled Against the Galilaeans, in which he opined that the Christian faith was nothing more than a “fabrication [and] a fiction of men, composed by wickedness.”⁵⁷ He desired to return to the ancient ways of Rome and embraced paganism with a fury. He stopped shaving and grew a beard in the tradition of the ancient Greeks, although it prompted the creation of the nickname “goat” from his subjects.⁵⁸ He wore pagan philosopher clothing, instead of traditional Roman attire, ordered the rebuilding of dismantled pagan temples, and brought back public sacrifices to the pagan deities. The emperor passed several anti-Christian edicts, including one that required referring to Christians as “Galilaeans” — his favorite pejorative for the believers in Christ. His persecution of the Church involved a three-pronged strategy: the reorganization of paganism, the marginalization of Catholics, and an alliance with the Jews.

Julian’s plan to restore paganism revolved around making it like the Catholic Church. He composed standard prayer books for use in pagan temples throughout the Empire and engaged in charitable works, such as founding homes for single mothers, establishing pagan prison ministries, and even created a pagan military chaplaincy.⁵⁹ But “the thing he planned to revive had never existed” — there had never been a hierarchically structured corporate body in paganism like the Church.⁶⁰ The emperor believed that if he made paganism like the Catholic Church, people would return to the pagan cults; but he failed to understand that the Faith was more than just an external organization promoting charitable works.

The second element of Julian’s strategy was to marginalize Catholics in Roman society. He stopped promotions of Catholic soldiers and refused to appoint any Catholic as provincial governor or magistrate. Catholics were also banned from practicing law. In June 362, the emperor issued an edict forbidding Catholics from teaching rhetoric, grammar, and philosophy in schools. The short-term goal was to force ambitious Christians to allow pagans to educate their children.⁶¹ Julian hoped that, in the long-term, the edict would prevent educated people from remaining or becoming Catholic, which would stagnate the Church and eventually cause her demise. This edict was problematic for Catholic parents; education was critical for advancement in Roman society. Thankfully, the edict did not have the intended effect, as its enforcement did not last long.

Finally, Julian believed he could neutralize the Church by entering into an alliance with the Jews. He wrote letters to Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, exhorting them to begin training a new class of priests, since he intended to rebuild the Temple and reinstate animal sacrifices.⁶² Julian thought that a rebuilt Temple would nullify Christ’s prophecy concerning the destruction of the Holy City and lessen the credibility of the Catholic faith. He financed construction efforts to rebuild the Temple, but the work did not progress due to sudden, unnatural events. The Roman soldier and historian Ammianus Marcellinus (c. 330–390) recorded that soon after construction began an earthquake damaged the site. When the work continued, mysterious balls of fire burst from the foundation and burned the workmen.⁶³ The damage to the foundation and the fiery death of several workers permanently halted construction.

Julian’s persecution of the Church, which included the torture and exile of bishops and execution of Christians in Syria, produced the opposite effect he had hoped to achieve. Persecution strengthened the Church and the resolve of Christians, counteracting the emperor’s longed-for return of a vibrant paganism. Julian’s decision to restore exiled Nicene bishops to their sees, which he hoped would sow division in the Church, was welcomed by the faithful and undercut the authority of Arian bishops. In the end, the Church was not greatly affected by the apostate’s anti-Christian policies and edicts. This illustrates how deeply the Faith was inculcated into Roman society less than a century after Constantine’s victory at Milvian Bridge. Julian’s persecution of the Church also failed because he reigned for only eighteen months. He launched a military campaign against the Persians in the summer of 363, and at the Battle of Samarra foolishly charged into an enemy retreat without his armor. He was struck with a double-bladed spear that pierced his ribs and struck his liver. The wound proved fatal. The emperor, forever known as Julian the Apostate, died uttering, “You have won, O Galilean” as his final words.⁶⁴

The End of Paganism

In less than twenty years after the death of Julian the Apostate, the paganism he had endeavored to revitalize was stamped out. Theodosius (r. 379–392) was an orthodox Catholic from Spain who became co-emperor with Gratian (r. 367–383) in 379. Theodosius was a soldier and spent time with his father, a Roman general, on campaign in Britain, Gaul, and the Balkans. He eventually became sole emperor, the last man to rule a united empire. Despite his political and military success, Theodosius considered it “more important to be a member of the Church than to be lord of the world.”⁶⁵ He illustrated this belief at the very beginning of his reign when he became the first emperor to refuse the pagan title Pontifex Maximus.⁶⁶ Theodosius desired religious unity in the Empire, and issued the Edict of Thessalonica in 380, which declared the Catholic faith to be the sole religion of the Empire:

It is Our will that all the people who are ruled by the administration of Our Clemency shall practice that religion which the divine Peter the Apostle transmitted to the Romans. We command that those persons who follow this rule shall embrace the name of Catholic Christians. The rest, however, whom We adjudge demented and insane, shall sustain the infamy of heretical dogmas, their meeting places shall not receive the name of churches, and they shall be smitten first by divine vengeance and secondly by the retribution of Our own initiative.⁶⁷

Theodosius’s edict also outlawed paganism, declaring pagan sacrifice a capital offense.⁶⁸ In only sixty-eight years, the Catholic faith had gone from persecuted minority to state-established religion!

A year later, the great emperor hoped to end the Arian controversy within the Church by calling a second ecumenical council at Constantinople. The Arians also erroneously believed that the Holy Spirit was not coeternal and of the same substance as the Father. In order to reassert the orthodox faith as defined at Nicaea, 148 eastern bishops met and added to the Nicene Creed words about the Holy Spirit, indicating that he “proceeds from the Father, [and] who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified.”⁶⁹

Church Fathers

During this time in Church history, the Holy Spirit raised up saintly men who guided, loved, protected, and disciplined the faithful. These men, many of whom we have met already, were “heirs to the apostles, the leaders and teachers of the early Church,” and are known as Church Fathers.⁷⁰ The age of the Fathers extends from the first through eighth centuries of Church history. Nearly ninety men are considered to be Church Fathers, grouped into categories such as hermits and monks, popes, apologists, preachers, philosophers, lawyers, scholars, theologians, and saints. They wrote in a variety of languages, including Greek, Latin, Syrian, and Armenian. Their writings consist of Scripture commentaries, theological works, and attacks against heresies. Pope Saint Gelasius I (r. 492–496) was the first to compile a listing of the Fathers, and Saint Vincent of Lérins (d. 450) defined Church Fathers as “those alone who, though in diverse times and places, yet persevering in the communion and faith of the one Catholic Church have been approved teachers.”⁷¹ In order for an early Christian writer to be considered a Church Father, he must meet four basic criteria: orthodoxy, holiness of life, Church approval, and antiquity.⁷² The work of the Church Fathers continues to be read and studied today.⁷³

The Soldier, Bishop, and Saint

The soldier was filled with joy at the birth of his son and named him “Martin,” or “little Mars,” to honor the favorite pagan deity of the Roman military. Little did the soldier know that his son would be forever remembered as a man of peace and love, not war and violence. Martin’s life was radically altered when he turned fifteen and was forced to enlist in the Roman army. Because the army suffered from a manpower shortage, Constantine had issued an edict in 331 requiring the sons of soldiers to enlist. Martin dutifully joined the service and became a member of the Imperial Guard, an elite cavalry unit charged with protecting the emperor on campaign. Although Martin did his duty, he did not want to join the army. It was the first instance in which “Martin would never be able to act as he intended; he could never decide his own destiny.”⁷⁴

Four years later, Martin was stationed at Amiens. During that winter, while out of the garrison riding, Martin passed by a poor man, half-naked, shivering in the cold, asking passersby for alms. People ignored the man and his pitiable condition, but Martin took his military winter cloak and cut it in two, giving one half to the poor man. He was ridiculed for such a foolish act, but later that night, in a dream, Martin saw Christ clothed in the cloak he had given to the poor man. The experience roused Martin to embrace the Faith, and he was baptized.

Martin struggled with his military service after his baptism, because he found it incompatible with Christian living. A visit from the western caesar before a battle gave him the opportunity he needed to end his military career. Germanic tribes were making incursions across the frontier, raiding Roman territory in Gaul. Julian the Apostate mustered his forces at Worms for a decisive battle and ordered the Imperial Guard into combat. Before the battle, Julian appeared before the men to pay them a combat bonus, but he was confronted with an unanticipated situation. Martin’s later biographer Sulpicius Severus recorded the story:

There he [Julian] began to distribute a bonus to the soldiers. They were called up one by one in the usual way until Martin’s turn came. But he thought it would be a suitable time for applying for his discharge, for he did not think that it would be honest for him to take the bonus if he was not going to fight. So he said to the Caesar: “I have been your soldier up to now. Let me now be God’s. Let someone who is going to fight have your bonus. I am Christ’s soldier.” These words put the tyrant into a rage and he said that it was from fear of the battle that was to be fought the next day that he wanted to quit the service, not from religious motives. But Martin was undaunted; in fact, he stood all the firmer when they tried to frighten him. “If it is put down to cowardice,” he said, “and not to faith, I will stand unarmed in front of the battle line tomorrow and I will go unscathed through the enemy’s columns in the name of the Lord Jesus, protected by the sign of the Cross instead of by shield and helmet.”⁷⁵

Confronted with Martin’s strong faith, Julian relented, allowing him to muster out of the army after serving twenty-five years. Martin left the military and embraced the monastic lifestyle, settling in the town of Poitiers. Martin’s reputation for holiness increased, and he soon came to the attention of the saintly and beloved bishop Hilary of Poitiers (310–368). Upon Hilary’s death in 368, the people wanted someone special to take his place, and they quickly agreed it should be Martin. Martin had no interest in the episcopacy and wanted to remain a monk, but “once again he would be obliged to do something he had not wanted to do: he would be a bishop in spite of himself.”⁷⁶ Despite his hesitance, Martin was an effective and popular bishop, contrary to the other bishops in Gaul who tended to be worldly and stayed in the cities. Martin believed the function of a bishop was to minister to the people, not to spend time in meetings with other bishops. He refused to go to local synods and other gatherings of the episcopacy. He initiated a plan of evangelization to bring the Gospel to the pagani in the countryside: “One could sum up Martin’s apostolate by noting that he did not take the Roman road, but, rather, the Gaulish byway.”⁷⁷ The saintly man almost singlehandedly brought the Faith out of the city and into the countryside, where he worked many miracles, including the raising of three people from the dead.⁷⁸ Martin’s efforts ensured the Church would not remain an urban phenomenon, but rather be the foundation of a post-imperial society.

The beloved bishop passed to his eternal reward on November 8, 397. He was buried on November 11, and his shrine became one of the most important pilgrimage places in Christendom.⁷⁹ The Church recognized Martin’s sanctity immediately, a unique honor usually reserved for martyrs or popes.⁸⁰ Martin was “an everyday saint” who humbly submitted to God’s plan for his life, despite his desires, so that “forced to do something he did not want to do, he accomplished much more than he could have dared to hope.”⁸¹

The Unlikely Bishop, Protector of the Church

In the same year of Martin’s death, another man who had not wanted to be a bishop died in the city of Milan. Born in Trier, Ambrose came from a prominent Roman Christian family who counted martyrs among its ancestors. His father, Aurelius Ambrosius, was the praetorian prefect of Gaul during the reign of Constantius II. When Aurelius died, the family moved to Rome. Ambrose’s sister became a religious, receiving her veil from the hands of Pope Liberius.⁸² Like his father, Ambrose embraced a secular career in politics. He studied grammar, rhetoric, and law, and he even learned Greek. His brilliance and talents earned him a position on the staff of the praetorian prefect of Italy. At the age of twenty-nine, Ambrose was appointed governor of the provinces of Liguria and Emelia with the regional seat at Milan. Ambrose gained a reputation as an efficient, fair, and conscientious governor.

Following the death of Auxentius, the Arian bishop of Milan, in 373, the clergy and people gathered in the cathedral to elect his successor. The orthodox contingent saw Auxentius’s death as an opportunity to get rid of the Arians and elect a bishop who supported Nicaea. The Arians wanted to retain control of Milan and were opposed to any candidate in favor of the orthodox creed. Both sides were unwilling to compromise, and the deliberations turned violent. Hoping to quell the riot, Ambrose, who had been present observing the proceedings, rose to address the assembly, urging peace and unity. His speech had the desired effect, along with an unintended consequence. Tradition holds that a small child cried out, “Ambrose for bishop!” and the people agreed.⁸³ Ambrose was stupefied at his unexpected election by popular acclamation, especially given his status as a catechumen. Ambrose left the cathedral without accepting the election; however, the clergy and people were determined to see him bishop. They sent a petition to Emperor Valentinian, requesting his assistance in the matter. The emperor sent a letter to Ambrose that told him to accept, so he did. He was baptized on Sunday, ordained a priest a few days later, and then consecrated bishop the following Sunday.⁸⁴

Ambrose quickly embraced the clerical life thrust upon him. He sold his worldly possessions and gave the money to the poor. He diligently studied the Scriptures and theological works. He developed a prayer life rooted in the Scriptures, known as lectio divina, (or divine reading), which remains a popular devotion. His primary objective was to root out Arianism and unite the Milanese under the banner of Nicaean orthodoxy. Ambrose, like Irenaeus, defined membership in the Church as communion with Rome, writing, “Where Peter is, there is the Church.”⁸⁵ Ambrose also wanted to combine the public duties of a bishop with the life of a monk. He lived simply, focused on his personal prayer life, and devoted hours to performing corporal works of mercy. He taught his people primarily through preaching, which influenced a young teacher named Augustine. His relationship with this young teacher would be one of the most important friendships in Church history.

Ambrose understood the secular political world due to his previous profession. As bishop, he engaged in not only ensuring the independence of the Church from secular control, but also in reminding the emperor that he was not above critique from the episcopacy. He established the principle that even the most powerful political ruler is subject to the bishops of the Church in matters of faith. Ambrose rejected the eastern notion of caesaro-papism when he wrote: “In cases where matters of faith are in question, it is the custom for bishops to judge emperors when the emperors are Christian, and not for emperors to judge bishops. The Emperor is within the Church and not above the Church.”⁸⁶ He instituted this policy in two high-profile cases of conflict with the emperor.

The Roman Senate house contained a statue of the pagan goddess Victoria, where senators used to offer incense at her altar upon entering the building. Constantius II removed the statue at the urging of Christian senators in 357, but it was later restored. Emperor Gratian ordered its removal once more; however, during the reign of Valentinian, a group of pagan senators wanted to hold a procession to the statue. News reached Ambrose that the emperor was considering granting the request. The bishop wrote a letter, exhorting him to forbid the procession — and if the emperor refused, then he could “come to church if you wish, but you will not find a bishop there, or if so, it will be one who resists you.”⁸⁷

In 390, the local military commander, Butheric, arrested a popular charioteer in Thessalonica on charges of sexual impropriety, resulting in a riot that led to Butheric’s death and the mutilation of his corpse, which was dragged through the streets. Emperor Theodosius, incensed at the treatment of his official, ordered the army to massacre every Thessalonian who attended the next series of games. Several thousand people, including women and children, were put to the sword. Ambrose was horrified when he heard the news and sent a scathing personal letter to Theodosius, calling him to repentance for this sinful act:⁸⁸

A deed has been perpetrated at Thessalonica, which has no parallel in history. Put away this sin from your kingdom. You may do that by humbling your soul before God. You are a man, and temptation has come to you; now get the better of it. Tears and penitence alone can take away sin. I dare not offer the Sacrifice [of the Mass] if you attend. For can it possibly be right, after the slaughter of so many, to do that which may not be done after the blood of only one innocent person has been shed?⁸⁹

Theodosius was moved by Ambrose’s letter. He made a public profession of penance by coming to Milan on Christmas Day 390, where he prostrated himself before the bishop, wearing simple clothing. Ambrose joyfully absolved the emperor and readmitted him to communion. The image of the most powerful man in the world humbly submitting himself in penance before the Church must have moved the entire Church, as news spread of the action — such an act would have been unthinkable even twenty years before! Ambrose’s strong defense of the Church, as well as his leadership in restricting caesaro-papism in the west, is his most enduring legacy. The saintly bishop of Milan died in 397. His friend, Saint Augustine, whom he helped bring into the Church, wrote of Ambrose that “he was one of those [men], who speak the truth, and speak it well, judiciously, pointedly, and with beauty and power of expression.”⁹⁰

The Golden-Mouthed

John (347–407) loved his home city of Antioch, but God’s plan for his life would lead him far from home and involve much suffering. He studied the law with a mind to pursue public service, but felt the call to the life of a hermit and monk. His brilliance and holy living attracted the attention of his bishop, who ordained him a deacon in 381 and then a priest five years later. He would have been content to remain in his beloved Antioch, ministering to the people. But when Nectarius, the archbishop of Constantinople, died in 397, John was chosen to succeed him. Initially, John refused the appointment, prompting the emperor to send an armed guard to escort him to the capital city. In Constantinople, John found a lax clergy, so his first task as archbishop was to reform the presbyterate. John desired to live a simple eremetical life as archbishop, but that caused friction with the wealthy Christians of Constantinople, who expected their archbishop to host lavish parties for their entertainment. The archbishop exhorted the rich to forgo their extravagant lifestyle (he mocked their use of silver chamber pots) in order to help the poor. John’s preaching lost the support of many powerful and influential Christians in the city. John also preached against the vanity of women and their extravagant dress. Many believed this was directed at the empress Eudoxia, who was known for her ostentatious lifestyle. Eudoxia and her ecclesial supporters held a synod (known as the Synod of the Oak) wherein they persuaded Emperor Arcadius (r. 395–408) to depose and banish the archbishop. When news of John’s exile reached the people, they disagreed so vehemently that the empress fearfully ordered John’s return. The beloved archbishop cautiously returned to the city and continued his preaching. A few months later, a silver statue of Eudoxia was erected near the cathedral and the attendant celebrations caused a commotion. John complained about the situation to the prefect of the city, who in turn informed the empress the archbishop was unhappy with the celebrations. Eudoxia used the opportunity to get rid of John, convincing Arcadius to exile the archbishop once more. This time, John was sent to exile in the farthest regions of the Empire, attended by a vicious guard, who mistreated him during the long journey. Eventually, the experience was too much for the aged archbishop. John died in the year 407, giving glory to God with his dying breath.

John’s preaching earned him the moniker “Golden-Mouthed,” or “Chrysostom.” His sermons were popular with the common people because he concentrated on practical, everyday matters, and provided guidance on how to live the Christian faith daily. His sermon topics included conducting transactions in the marketplace in accordance with the Church’s moral teachings, utilizing monetary blessings for the good of others, avoiding vanity, and living a holy Christian marriage. John urged husbands to love their wives and encouraged young men to choose a spouse wisely: “Love based on physical beauty belong[s] to unchaste souls. Seek instead for beauty of soul. Do you not see how many, after living with beautiful wives, have ended their lives pitiably, and how many, who have lived with those of no great beauty, have run on to extreme old age with great enjoyment.”⁹¹ Saint John Chrysostom’s preaching ensured that his fame and sanctity would be recognized in the Church for centuries.

The Irascible Translator

Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus (342–420) was born in Dalmatia to a Christian family. He was a well-educated young man who lived a worldly lifestyle, which, no doubt, caused consternation for his parents. Eventually, the young man known to history as Jerome was baptized in Rome in 360. A brilliant student, Jerome turned his attention to studying theology, which he undertook with vigor. After a few years in Rome, he traveled east and settled in Antioch for five years, living an ascetical life as a hermit in the desert. During this time, he was ordained to the priesthood. He left the ancient Christian city and spent time in Constantinople. During his sojourn in the east, he met some of the leading theologians of the day, including Gregory Nazianzen and Gregory of Nyssa. Jerome’s theological mind and intellectual skills drew the attention of Pope Saint Damasus I (r. 366–384), who appointed him papal secretary. Jerome’s studies continued, and he learned Greek and Hebrew. Damasus asked Jerome to utilize his language skills in undertaking the translation of the Scripture into the language of the people, which was Latin.⁹² Jerome began work on the audacious project in 382. Two years later, he published a translated version of the Gospels. A few years later, Jerome began the translation of the Old Testament books. Jerome’s work became known as the Vulgate edition of the Bible, which has been the standard text of Scripture from the sixth century to the modern day.

When Pope Damasus died, the situation in Rome became untenable for Jerome, who had many enemies in the Eternal City. Jerome’s anger-management problem, and unapologetic manner of speaking and writing, were well known. When the Roman lawyer Helvidius argued that the Blessed Mother gave birth to additional children after Jesus, Jerome wrote an eviscerating response: “To defend his position, [Helvidius] piles up text upon text, waves his sword like a blindfolded gladiator, rattles his noisy tongue, and ends by wounding no one but himself.”⁹³ Jerome also criticized high profile members of the Church. When Ambrose the civilian was acclaimed bishop of Milan, Jerome penned his disgust: “[A] catechumen today becomes a bishop tomorrow; yesterday at the amphitheater, today in the church; in the evening at the circus, in the morning at the altar; a little time ago patron of actors, now dedicator of virgins.”⁹⁴ Without his papal patron, Jerome left Rome and settled in Bethlehem, living in a monastery near a convent established by two female friends, Paula and her daughter Eustochium. Jerome spent the remainder of his days practicing asceticism. Despite his irascible nature, Jerome performed an admirable task in translating the Scriptures into Latin and providing the Church with a standard edition of the Word of God. Jerome’s writings illustrate his filial obedience to the bishop of Rome and provide additional evidence of the early Christians’ belief in Petrine primacy. He wrote, “I know that on this rock [Saint Peter’s See] the Church is built” and “I am with whoever is united to the teaching of Saint Peter.”⁹⁵

The Sack of Rome

Germanic tribes east of the Rhine desired admittance into the Roman Empire due to the economic advantages and security found within the imperial borders; over the centuries, Roman policy allowed for their entry in exchange for military service. In the late fourth century, an ethnically German warrior (Roman by birth) commanded a Roman auxiliary force at the Battle of the Frigid River. At the end of the first day of battle, the commander, Alaric (d. 410), had lost nearly half his men in the fighting, and was upset that his forces had been used in a manner that limited the casualties of the regular Roman forces. Like other auxiliary commanders before him, Alaric desired a regular Roman military commission, along with the title Magister Militum (Master of Soldiers) in recognition of his service to Rome. When the emperor denied his request, Alaric left the army and went east to raid. Alaric returned to the western half of the Empire in the early fifth century and marched on Rome with an army of thirty thousand warriors.⁹⁶ When Alaric captured Rome’s port city Ostia, a delegation from Rome appeared in his camp, asking for terms. Alaric told the delegates that he required all movable wealth in the city and the return of all Germanic slaves held in Rome. One of the ambassadors, aghast at the terms, asked Alaric what he intended to leave the Romans with. Alaric responded, “Your lives.”⁹⁷ The delegation returned to the city with Alaric’s terms, but the Senate countered with an offer of 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds of silver, 4,000 silk tunics, 3,000 scarlet hides, and 3,000 pounds of black pepper.⁹⁸ The counteroffer did not change Alaric’s mind. He unleashed his troops to rampage, pillage, and murder within the city for three days. Interestingly, Alaric gave strict orders for his troops not to destroy churches or hurt the clergy in the city, which they obeyed.⁹⁹ Rome had not been sacked in eight hundred years — its destruction caused Saint Jerome to weep when news of the calamity reached him in Bethlehem. Distraught, the Church Father wrote, “In one city the whole world has perished” and questioned, “If Rome can perish, what can be safe?”¹⁰⁰ The news of Rome’s sacking was so upsetting that some wondered whether the end of the world was at hand. Others remarked that the city never suffered such indignity when the pagan gods were honored, and blamed the disaster on the Christians. This opinion gained traction in the Empire, but one man stood up to answer that claim.

The Greatest Pagan Convert

The son born to Patricius and Monica on November 13, 354, in the town of Thagaste in Roman Numidia (modern-day Algeria) would become known as one of the most distinguished theologians, spiritual writers, and saints in Church history. Monica, a Christian, prayed fervently for her husband, two sons, and daughter to embrace the Faith. Her son Augustine was “intellectually precocious, with the temperament of the artist, and all the frank sensuality of the pagan.”¹⁰¹ As a young man, Augustine lived an immoral life, which caused his mother much pain. His father died when he was sixteen, but not before Monica’s prayers had been answered and Patricius had received baptism. At seventeen, Augustine entered into a relationship with a young woman of lower social status. It was not uncommon for young men to take a concubine until they had the means to make a living and acquire a socially acceptable wife.¹⁰² Augustine loved the girl deeply, and they spent the next fourteen years together. The relationship produced a child, a son they named Adeodatus, which means “God’s gift” (a common name in North Africa at the time). A few years after his son’s birth, Augustine joined a Gnostic sect known as the Manichaeans, much to the chagrin of his mother, who prayed for his conversion during the decade he spent as a member of the group.

Augustine had a keen mind that he utilized to make a living as a teacher. He taught grammar in his hometown of Thagaste for a time and then rhetoric in Carthage, Rome, and Milan. Milan was the imperial residence during this time, and it was in this city that Augustine heard the preaching of Saint Ambrose, who became his friend. Augustine treasured his relationship with the saintly bishop of Milan, who helped him along the path of faith. Eventually, on the Easter Vigil in 387, the prayers of Monica were answered. Augustine, along with Adeodatus, was baptized by Ambrose. A few months after Augustine’s conversion, Monica remarked to her son: “There was indeed one thing for which I wished to wait in this life, and that was that I might see you a Catholic before I died. My God has exceeded this abundantly, so that I see you despising all earthly happiness, for you have been made his servant. What am I doing here?”¹⁰³ Her life’s wish realized, Monica died at the age of fifty-six.

After his conversion, Augustine returned to North Africa to the town of Hippo, where he wished to live a simple monastic life in communion with God. However, like many other saints in Church history, God had planned a different path for Augustine. He was ordained a priest in 391 and, four years later, made bishop of Hippo. Even as the chief ecclesial leader in Hippo, Augustine continued to live a simple monastic life while he undertook the administrative and financial duties of the episcopacy. In one moment of exasperation, Augustine commented on the difficulties of being a bishop: “No one who has not been a bishop would believe what we are expected to do.”¹⁰⁴ As bishop, Augustine arbitrated disputes among his flock and interfaced with the civil authorities. He devoted his time and energy to reforming the clergy of his diocese and exhorting his people to live the Faith authentically. He bemoaned the Christians who only attended the Sacrifice of the Mass on Christmas and Easter.¹⁰⁵ He reminded his flock that attending Mass to please a patron, secure a wife, or attain physical healing were not proper motivations, and called them to attend Mass to praise God and to reform themselves, saying, “A convert will find many good Christians in the Church if he sets out to become one himself.”¹⁰⁶

Augustine was a prolific writer whose works greatly influenced the development of doctrine and Christian spirituality. He was the Church’s unmatched thinker and theologian for eight hundred years, the “bridge between the old world (Roman) and the new world (Catholic).”¹⁰⁷ Augustine’s two most famous works are Confessions and The City of God. His Confessions was written a decade after his conversion to the Faith, when he had been a priest for eight years. It is “a sort of autobiography in the form of a dialogue with God.”¹⁰⁸ In this prose-poem, Augustine writes of the fundamental truth that “the soul that has lost God has lost its roots and therefore has lost itself.”¹⁰⁹ True happiness is found not in oneself but in relationship with God. Only God fulfills the soul’s longing: “You have made us for yourself, and our heart finds no rest until it rests in you.”¹¹⁰ Even the soul that has wandered far from God can be made whole again by entering into a relationship with the loving God, as Augustine explained in a letter about his book: “See what I was in myself and by myself. I had destroyed myself, but he who made me remade me.”¹¹¹ Augustine’s Confessions became the most popular and standard manual for Christian spirituality for the next thousand years.¹¹²

Alaric’s sack of Rome in 410 was met with cries of indignation directed at Christians and God. Many in the Empire argued that the city had been protected from harm when the pagan deities were worshiped. Now that they had been ignored in favor of the Christian God, the deities had withdrawn their protection, and the city was destroyed. Augustine recognized that argument as fallacious, and he wrote a rebuttal to ensure a proper interpretation of the calamity. His work, written over a decade, encompassed twenty-two books and is known as The City of God: Against the Pagans. The City is divided into two parts. The first is a defense of the Faith against the pagan claim that conversion was the reason for the Empire’s destruction. The second part is an explication of the two cities — the “City of Man,” founded on self-love, pride, ambition, greed, and other vices, and the “City of God,” founded on love of God, selflessness, humility, sacrifice, and obedience. These “cities” are distinct yet comingled in time, and each individual struggles as a citizen of both. Augustine’s work laid the foundation for a proper interpretation of human history. God is involved in history, and the Faith is the key to understanding the events that occur in the world. All events must be understood in light of the Gospel and God’s plan for humanity. History is the “drama of sin and redemption,” and a city’s destruction is not due to the withdrawal of the gods’ protection but to the freely willed choices of men loved by God.¹¹³

Augustine’s days were filled not only with writing but also with protecting his flock from the heretical teachings of three groups: the Manichaeans, the Donatists, and the Pelagians. Mani (216–276), a Persian raised in a Christian/Jewish sect, left the group in his early twenties to found his own movement. Mani’s Gnostic teachings embraced a dualist understanding of the world, with a belief that material things are evil and spiritual things are good. The core believers of Mani’s religion were the elect, who possessed the secret knowledge he shared with them. The elect were bound to live in accordance with Manichaean principles, including celibacy, vegetarianism, abstinence from alcohol, no land ownership, and refraining from picking or eating apples because of the fruit’s alleged role in original sin.¹¹⁴ The vast majority of Mani’s followers did not want to live the strict life of the elect, so they were known as “hearers.” The hearers obeyed Mani’s teaching of using contraception to prevent pregnancy and, if that failed, abortion, because the marital act, according to Manichaeism, could result in the imprisonment of a good spiritual soul in a bad material body. Additionally, the hearers followed a vegetarian diet and acted as the servants of the elect. This strict and radical life, along with the emphasis on possessing secret knowledge, fostered growth in membership — but the Manichaeans ran into trouble with the Roman authorities. The sect was seen as a dangerous foreign element by Emperor Diocletian, who issued an edict of suppression at the end of the third century. Augustine was well aware of Manichaean teaching and the danger it presented to the faithful because he had been a member of the group for a decade in his youth. He worked diligently to combat Manichaeism and protect his people from the nefarious cult.

The Donatists were an extremist group that had developed in North Africa in the early fourth century, after the Great Persecution. They developed as a result of the ongoing question concerning the lapsi. Donatists argued that the handing over of the sacred objects and the Scriptures during the Great Persecution was an unforgiveable mortal sin. Additionally, the Donatists believed that if a member of the lapsi was a cleric, he could not continue in ministry, because the sacraments celebrated by a lapsed priest were invalid due to his personal failings and unworthiness. Despite imperial and papal condemnation of their teachings, the group persisted and proved a difficult opponent for Augustine in Hippo. The Donatists thrived on being a small, constantly persecuted group. Adherents engaged in self-inflicted martyrdom by making themselves known to the authorities in order to be killed, and even practiced immolation and drowning. They despised Catholics and engaged in open warfare against them. Catholic travelers moving through Donatist territory were frequently ambushed and blinded by Donatists throwing a mixture of lime and vinegar into their eyes.¹¹⁵ When Donatists captured Catholic churches, they first used a disinfectant, the same used in public restrooms, to cleanse the space before utilizing it.¹¹⁶ They also smashed altars and threw away consecrated oils and the Eucharist because they believed the items to be profaned from the unworthiness of the Catholic minister.¹¹⁷ The situation was akin to a civil war. Hippo was split between Donatists and Catholics, “and each body treasured the memory of every single insult.”¹¹⁸ Augustine worked tirelessly to end the infighting and to bring the Donatists into communion with the Church. Augustine wrote books undermining the Donatists’ extremist views, which resulted in many conversions from the group.

Augustine also wrote against the teachings of the British monk Pelagius, a tall and corpulent man who Jerome described as being “weighed down with Scottish porridge.”¹¹⁹ Pelagius visited Rome sometime in the early fifth century and was disillusioned by the decadent lifestyle of Roman Christians. Pelagius wrote the book On Nature in 415. In it, he said that original sin was not communicated to the entire human race, but was only the personal sin of Adam. He advocated that Christ’s mission was not salvific, but only provided a good example for moral living. Pelagius also denied the operative power of grace. He believed man has the capacity, through his own will, to live a life of perfection and attain heaven — God’s grace is unnecessary. Pope Zosimus (r. 417–418) condemned Pelagianism in 418, which resulted in a famous phrase attributed to Augustine (although he probably never wrote the exact words): “Rome has spoken, the case is closed.”¹²⁰ Augustine’s writings against Pelagianism were so effective that he is known as the “Doctor of Grace.”

Augustine devoted the last thirty-five years of his life to his flock in Hippo. He died as the Arian Vandals were besieging his beloved city. In the eyes of his friend and biographer, Posidius, Augustine was a “heroic pastor,” who left the Church in Hippo in far better shape than it had been when he became its bishop.¹²¹ Few members of the family of God have shone more brightly than the great Saint Augustine.

Mary is the Mother of God — The Council of Ephesus

On Christmas Day in the year 428, the newly consecrated patriarch of Constantinople gave a homily. Nestorius, a monk originally from Antioch, had been chosen patriarch by Emperor Theodosius II (r. 408–450) for his reputation for holiness and excellent preaching. Nestorius was particular about language, exhibiting a “semantic fussiness” and “arrogant intellectualism [that] drove him from mere idiosyncrasy into explicit heresy.”¹²² In his first Christmas as patriarch, Nestorius attacked the use of the word Theotokos to describe Mary as “the Mother of God”: “They ask whether Mary may be called God-bearer. But has God, then, a Mother? Mary did not bear God — the creature did not bear the Creator, but the man, who is the instrument of the Godhead. He who was formed in the womb of Mary was not God himself, but God assumed him.”¹²³

Nestorius’s attack on the Blessed Mother was, in reality, an attack on Christ. He was fond of saying that “God is not a baby two or three months old.”¹²⁴ This view was influenced by Nestorius’s Arian educational background in Antioch. Nestorius could not reconcile the fact that Jesus, as true God and true man, was born of Mary. He believed that Mary provided merely the human “fleshy garment” of Christ, since “the Eternal God cannot be born, suffer, and die.”¹²⁵ Mary, according to Nestorius, was Christotokos, or “Christ-bearer” — not Theotokos, or “God-bearer.”¹²⁶ When news of Nestorius’s preaching reached Saint Cyril of Alexandria (r. 412–444), the patriarch of Alexandria, he became alarmed and wrote to Nestorius: “These things I write out of love in Christ, exhorting you as a brother and calling upon you before Christ and the elect angels, to hold and teach these things with us, in order to preserve the peace of the churches and that the priests of God may remain in an unbroken bond of concord and love.”¹²⁷

Known as the “guardian of exactitude,” Cyril sought to vigorously combat Nestorius’s false preaching and ensure the Church did not suffer another far-reaching and destructive heresy like Arianism. When Nestorius failed to correct his error, Cyril sent letters to the emperor and Pope Saint Celestine I (r. 422–432). Cyril wanted the pope’s opinion on Nestorius’s teaching before he publicly condemned it:

We do not openly and publicly break off communion with [Nestorius] before bringing these things to the notice of Your Holiness. Deign therefore to prescribe what you feel in the matter, so that it may be clearly known to us whether we must hold communion with him, or whether we should freely declare to him that no one can remain in communion with one who cherishes and preaches suchlike erroneous doctrine.¹²⁸

Celestine responded that Nestorius’s teachings were not in conformity with the apostolic Catholic faith. As a result, Cyril condemned Nestorius’s heretical teachings about Mary, which he correctly discerned were really an attack on Christ himself, writing to his monks, “I am astonished that the question should ever have been raised as to whether the Holy Virgin should be called Mother of God, for it really amounts to asking, is her Son God, or is he not?”¹²⁹ Cyril’s letters and writings were instrumental in defeating Nestorianism. They received definitive acclamation at the third ecumenical council, convened by Emperor Theodosius II at Ephesus in 431. Cyril acted as papal legate, and in short order the assembled council fathers condemned Nestorius, deposed him, and then excommunicated him. He retired to his former monastery in Antioch. The Council of Ephesus affirmed Mary as Theotokos, Mother of God, in accordance with the apostolic faith.

The First Great Pope

A decade after the Council at Ephesus, Leo I (r. 440–461) began his twenty-one-year pontificate, exerting papal supremacy throughout the Church, enforcing ecclesiastical discipline, fighting heresies, and protecting Rome. Leo had been a deacon of the Roman Church during the pontificate of Pope Celestine I and was known to be an excellent preacher. He was in Gaul, representing papal interests, when news came of Celestine’s death and his election to the papacy.

An abbot of an influential monastery in Constantinople began teaching that Jesus had only one nature, a divine one (Monophysitism). The monk, Eutyches (378–454), taught that Jesus’ human nature was absorbed by his divine nature “like a drop of water mingled in a cup of wine.”¹³⁰ Eutyches’s teaching flowed from the Arian controversy concerning the nature of Christ, as theologians continued struggling to find the language to express the faith of Nicaea. In an effort to dispel any notion of Jesus being two persons, Eutyches preached Monophysitism, which essentially repudiated Christ’s humanity — if Christ is true God and true man, then it logically follows he must have both a divine and human nature. News of Eutyches’s teaching reached Rome, which prompted Pope Leo to write a theological treatise, known as the Tome, on the subject. Leo sent his book to Saint Flavian, the patriarch of Constantinople, who, in turn, excommunicated and deposed Eutyches. However, the influential monk appealed this action to the emperor and requested an ecumenical council to settle the matter. Emperor Theodosius II called a council to meet in Ephesus in 449. Leo sent representatives with a copy of his Tome, which he expected to be read and accepted as definitive teaching. Eutyches and his supporters objected to the reading of the papal document and highjacked the proceedings of the council which then ruled in favor of the heretical monk and ordered the deposition and exile of Saint Flavian! When news of the irregular proceedings at Ephesus reached Pope Leo, he condemned the council, referring to it as “non judicium, sed latrocinium” (“not a judicial gathering, but a council of thieves [or robbers]”).¹³¹

Eventually, another meeting was called at Chalcedon in 451. This gathering was the most well-attended ecumenical council to date, with more than five hundred bishops present. At this council, Leo’s Tome was read to the assembled council fathers, who, moved by the Holy Spirit, shouted with one voice after the reading: “Behold the Faith of the Fathers; the Faith of the Apostles! So do we too, all of us believe, all who are orthodox believe the same! Anathema to whoever believes otherwise! Thus through Leo has Peter spoken!”¹³² Leo had developed a way to express the apostolic faith concerning the nature of Jesus. In the hypostatic union, confirmed in the proceedings at Chalcedon, Leo taught that Jesus is one divine person, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, with two natures — divine and human. Jesus is “truly God and truly man” and must be “acknowledged in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”¹³³ Leo’s contribution to theology is one of the most significant teachings of the successors of Peter.

The council also passed discipline canons, but one in particular raised the ire of Pope Leo. The (mostly eastern) bishops in attendance at Chalcedon passed a canon that equated the see of Constantinople with that of Rome. This was done for political reasons, as the city was the capital of the Empire, but it implied that the patriarch of Constantinople was equal in authority to the pope. Leo rightly understood that if this canon were accepted, the hierarchical structure of the Church established by Christ would be altered. Jesus had chosen Peter to be the visible head of the Church on earth, and his authority, power, and mission were handed down to his successors, whose identities are not based on political considerations — that is, which city is the capital of the Roman Empire — but rather on where Peter was bishop. Papal rejection of this canon continued the tension between east and west, Constantinople and Rome, which would linger for centuries.

During the pontificate of Leo, the Huns, a nomadic people, left the Mongolian steppe and began a six-thousand-mile march to Rome. The Romans were dreadfully afraid of the Huns, who were described by the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus as “abnormally savage [and] totally ignorant of the distinction between right and wrong [and] are under no restraint from religion or superstition.”¹³⁴ The Huns were skilled horsemen, who allegedly slept in the saddle and ate half-raw meat they warmed under the saddle of their horse; excellent archers, shooting with impressive rapidity and accuracy while riding at high speed; and skilled engineers, using siege towers, battering rams, and scaling ladders in their attacks against fortified cities.

These fearsome warriors were led by Attila, a highly intelligent man. He was described by the Roman diplomat Priscus of Panium as “a lover of war, [who] was personally restrained in action, most impressive in counsel, gracious to supplicants, and generous to those who he had once given his trust,”¹³⁵ but merciless to those whose loyalty was not absolute. Physically, Attila was “short of stature with a broad chest, massive head, and small eyes.”¹³⁶ As a young man, Attila had lived in Rome as a hostage, where he learned Latin and Roman culture. He returned to his people and eventually became their sole ruler in 445 when he killed his brother in order to assume control of the tribe. In 451, Attila invaded Gaul in search of booty and plunder, and marched toward Paris. News of the Huns’ arrival sent the Parisians into a panicked mass exodus. However, the holy woman Saint Geneviève (422–502) rallied the people, urging them to pray and perform penance so that God might protect the city.¹³⁷ Abruptly, the Huns changed direction and instead marched down the Rhineland, sacking Reims, Mainz, Strasbourg, Cologne, Worms, and Trier instead. A year later, Attila invaded Italy and led his army to the outskirts of Rome. Pope Leo received reports about the march of the Huns. When Attila was still some distance away, Leo left the city with a small entourage and walked to the Huns’ camp. History does not record what the great pope said to the great warrior, but after the papal visit, Attila’s army broke camp and marched away. Leo had saved Rome.

Unfortunately, the respite proved fleeting, as another group of warriors arrived three years later. Genseric was the Arian ruler of the destructive Vandals. The Vandals approached Rome, and once again the saintly pope marched out. Leo’s mission was only partly successful this time, as Genseric decided to loot the city but not destroy it. The Vandals ravaged the city for fourteen days, carrying off enormous amounts of wealth and goods, including the famous menorah from the Temple of Jerusalem that Titus had brought to Rome after the conquest of Judea in the first century. Over the next several years, Leo worked tirelessly to restore and rebuild Rome, prioritizing the repair and construction of new churches. His pontificate was the most important of the century and one of the most momentous in all Church history. The saintly pope, the protector of Rome, eminent theologian, Doctor of the Church, and luminous Christian, passed to his eternal reward on November 10, 461.

The Collapse of the Western Roman Empire

Thirty-five years after the death of Pope Saint Leo the Great, the political environment in the western world changed dramatically. When General Orestes made his son, sixteen-year-old Romulus, emperor in 475, the young man took control of a Roman Empire vastly different from that established by Octavian Augustus in 27 B.C. Rome in the fifth century was a fatigued state, riven by political intrigue and controlled by an army whose core membership consisted of ethnically German warriors. Their commanders demanded increased recognition and authority from the Roman government for their services. In 476, Odoacer, a Roman auxiliary commander, demanded to rule a large portion of Italy and was rebuffed by General Orestes. Angered, Odoacer rebelled against Rome, killed Orestes, and overthrew the boy-emperor Romulus (commonly known as “Augustulus” or “little Augustus”). Odoacer declared himself King of Italy. Over time, central governing authority in Rome collapsed, and political power devolved to the local Germanic chieftains, the former commanders of Roman auxiliary troops.¹³⁸ There were many causes for the collapse of the Empire in the west in the late fifth century, but the historical evidence does not support the popular myths that hordes of greedy, savage German barbarians invaded Roman territory and eventually conquered it in a bloody spasm of violence, or that the Empire became enfeebled by embracing the Faith.

In the early Empire, the army had been composed of Roman citizens who saw military service as a duty of citizenship. By the third century, the army was professionalized, drawing recruits not from ordinary citizenry but from slaves and poor freemen. Recruiting became so difficult that imperial bureaucrats developed the idea of offering the Germanic tribes entrance into the confines of the Empire in exchange for military service. Meanwhile, political and military policies sent the Empire into a cycle of civil wars as the legions pulled back from the frontier. By the fifth century, the Roman army in its vital components was staffed by ethnic Germans, who had been raised in the Empire and self-identified as Roman but were not beholden to the wealthy Roman nobility or the imperial bureaucracy.¹³⁹

The change in the army reflected the overall change in Roman society. After five hundred years of rule, the Roman Empire started to buckle in exhaustion.¹⁴⁰ Romans simply lost confidence in their society. It was this exhaustion and lack of confidence, not the Church or invading hordes of barbarians, that broke the Roman system:

Civilization requires confidence in the society in which one lives, belief in its philosophy, belief in its laws, and confidence in one’s own mental powers. Vigor, energy, vitality: all the great civilizations — or civilizing epochs — have a weight of energy behind them. So if one asks why the civilization of Greece and Rome collapsed, the real answer is that it was exhausted.¹⁴¹

The ethnically German, yet Roman, local chieftains were forced to forge a new identity and social structure as a result of the Empire’s collapse. The Church, with her bishops and dioceses (organized according to the imperial governmental structure), was the only transnational organization in existence — and her unity in belief, practice, and way of life provided a glimmer of hope and light in the chaos caused by the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.¹⁴²

Two Swords

Twenty years after Odoacer’s rebellion, Pope Saint Gelasius (r. 492–496) formulated a new political principle in the West known as the “Two Powers.” Gelasius wrote to the Eastern Emperor Anastasius I (r. 491–518), explaining: “There are two powers, august Emperor, by which this world is chiefly ruled, namely the sacred authority of the priests and the royal power. Of these, that of the priests is the more weighty, since they have to render an account for even the kings of men in the divine judgment.”¹⁴³ Pope Saint Gelasius’s letter to the emperor was another development of the relationship between the ecclesial and civil authorities. Ambrose had advocated that the emperor, if Christian, was not above rebuke from the Church in certain matters, but Gelasius went further and argued that ecclesial power is higher and more important than civil power because the Church answers to God for the actions of men. This created a (mostly healthy) tension in the West between the Church and the civil political power, in contrast to the East, where the Church was subservient to the emperors’ policy of caesaro-papism.

The Germanic Tribes

The area once controlled by the Western Roman Empire was now governed by various Germanic tribes. The Goths were composed of the Visigoths, who settled in parts of Hispania, and southern and western Gaul; and the Ostrogoths, who lived in Italy. The Vandals were originally from southern Scandinavia but crossed the Rhine early in the fifth century. They migrated to Hispania soon thereafter and invaded North Africa. Under the leadership of Genseric, they sacked the city of Rome in 455. The Burgundians were also originally from Scandinavia, but had migrated to Poland and the Rhône valley in Gaul in the early fifth century. Their king, Chilperic II, received the title “general” from one of the last western emperors, Julius Nepos. Chilperic was Arian, but married Caretena, a Catholic. Their daughter, Clotilda, would play a vital role in Church history as the wife of Clovis, king of the Franks. The Franks, whose name derives from an old German word that meant “savage,”¹⁴⁴ were comprised of a confederation of tribes that were mostly hostile to Rome. One tribe, known as the Salian Franks, invaded Roman Gaul in the fifth century and eventually ruled northern Gaul. They became Roman auxiliary troops, fighting for Rome against Attila and the Huns. Southern Gaul was controlled by the Gallo-Romans, a Catholic people with strong ties to Rome and Roman culture. Perhaps the most famous Gallo-Roman was Saint Gregory of Tours (538–594), who wrote the History of the Franks, an invaluable resource for the history of these peoples. The Franks were a pagan people completely indifferent to the Faith, yet they “would become, not only the champions of Catholicism, but the future saviors of classical civilization.”¹⁴⁵

Most of these Germanic tribes (except the Franks and some Burgundians) were converted to Arianism by the missionary Ulfilas (311–383), the “Apostle to the Goths.” Ulfilas was an educated and intelligent man who had spent time in Constantinople. He was eventually ordained bishop by Eusebius of Nicomedia (the famed friend of the heretic Arius), and he spent forty years evangelizing the Goths. He invented Gothic script and translated the Scripture into Gothic to aid in his evangelization efforts. The Arian Goths influenced other Germanic tribes to embrace not only Arianism, but also hostility toward Roman culture and the Catholic Church.

The Franks resisted the Arianism of the Goths, holding fast to their pagan beliefs and customs. By the late fifth century, the Merovingian family became dominant among the Salian Franks, and in the year 482 the grandson of Merovech became king. Clovis (466–511) was only fifteen years old when he ascended the throne. The son of King Childeric I (436–482) and Basina, Queen of Thuringia, he became the most powerful political and military ruler in Western Europe. Clovis embodied his name (which means “noble warrior”) but was known to be ruthless, even to his own warriors.

When Clovis became king of the Salian Franks, he received a letter from Remigius (Remy), a Gallo-Roman bishop in the city of Reims. Remigius focused much of his episcopacy on the conversion of the Franks to the Catholic faith, recognizing that if they became Arian like the other Germanic tribes the Church would suffer and perhaps be extinguished in large parts of the world. Remigius desired Clovis’s conversion for this reason, but he also wanted to be on friendly terms with the warlike chief who intended to conquer all of Gaul. So, Remigius’s letter was diplomatic and calculating, containing flattery and advice on ruling well to ensure a long, successful reign:

Great news has reached us. You have just been placed at the head of the Frankish armies. None are surprised to see you become what your fathers were. Take for counselors those whose choice does honor to your discernment. Be prudent, chaste, moderate; honor bishops and do not disdain their advice. As long as you live on good terms with them, the affairs of state will prosper. Raise up the souls of your peoples, relieve the widows, feed the orphans. Later on they will serve you, and thus you will conquer the hearts of the very ones who fear you. Let justice be done both in your heart and by your lips. To your pleasures and games invite, if you like, young men of your own age, but only discuss business matters with the elders. It is thus that you will reign gloriously.¹⁴⁶

Remigius continued to pray for Clovis’s conversion and strove to keep the Church on good terms with his administration.

Within a few years of Remigius’s letter, Clovis’s armies had conquered most of Gaul. The Franks defeated the Gallo-Romans at the Battle of Soissons in 486, which gave them control of most of northern Gaul. Clovis marched on the important town of Paris, but, like Attila the Hun before him, his plans were thwarted by the saintly Geneviève. This beautiful woman of God had vowed that pagans would never set foot in her beloved city, and despite the Frankish siege, she maintained that resolve. When the city’s food situation became critical, Geneviève courageously commanded twelve ships up the Seine River, loaded supplies onboard, and sailed back to Paris. Eventually, the Frankish siege lost momentum, and Clovis was forced to retreat. Once again, Geneviève had saved Paris. She devoted the few remaining years of her life to praying for Clovis’s conversion. Despite the setback at Paris, by the early sixth century Clovis’s dream of a Frankish kingdom, where all tribes were united under his leadership and that of his progeny, was realized.

Clotilda and the Conversion of Clovis

Saint Clotilda (474–545) is one of the most important saints in Church history but is, sadly, not well-known outside of France.¹⁴⁷ Born a Burgundian princess, Clotilda was pledged in marriage to Clovis of the Franks, who was a few years her senior, to strengthen the alliance between the two peoples. They married in the late fifth century. Clotilda was Catholic, despite the fact that most Burgundians were Arian. Raised by her Catholic mother, Clotilda held strongly to the Faith and prayed constantly for Clovis’s conversion. She also tried to reason with Clovis: “The gods whom you worship are no good. They haven’t even been able to help themselves, let alone others. They are carved out of stone or wood or some old piece of metal. The very names, which you have given them were the names of men, not gods. You ought instead to worship him who created at a word and out of nothing heaven, the earth, the sea.”¹⁴⁸

Clovis was not swayed by Clotilda’s reasoning. He gave a rather weak response, arguing that God “can do nothing, and, what is more, there is no proof that he is God at all.”¹⁴⁹ Clovis’s intransigence only motivated Clotilda all the more. She continued to argue with, reason with, and, most importantly, pray for her husband. One prayer was answered when Clovis agreed to allow the baptism of their firstborn son, but the boy died shortly after receiving the sacrament. Clovis viewed his son’s death as proof that Clotilda’s God was false, arguing that “if he had been dedicated in the name of my gods, he would have lived without question.”¹⁵⁰ The saintly Clotilda answered this charge with abiding faith:

I give thanks to Almighty God, the Creator of all things, who has not found me completely unworthy, for he has deigned to welcome to his Kingdom the child conceived in my womb. I am not at all cast down in my mind because of what has happened, for I know that my child, who was called away from this world in his white baptismal robes, will be nurtured in the sight of God.¹⁵¹

Despite the tension in her marriage and the death of her son, Clotilda did not waver from her love of God and the Church.

Toward the end of the fifth century, Clovis led his army in a campaign against the Alemanni, another Germanic tribe that obstructed the consolidation of his power in Gaul. In the pivotal battle of the campaign, the Alemanni gained the upper hand and Clovis recognized his troops’ desperate situation. Near the edge of despair, Clovis reached out to the heavens, invoking Clotilda’s God.¹⁵² Almost immediately the battle swung in his favor as the Franks defeated the Alemanni. When he returned home, Clovis told Clotilda what had occurred, and she quickly dispatched a message to bishop Remigius to come and instruct Clovis in the Faith so he could receive baptism. During his baptismal preparation, Clovis had one overarching concern: How would his warriors react? Clovis was anxious that his troops might overthrow him for rejecting their ancestral gods, or they might allow his conversion but not accept the Faith themselves, which would cause division in the tribe. So, Clovis called his warriors together. He informed his warriors of his intention to convert, and asked their opinion. The king was overjoyed to learn that the soldiers not only agreed with his plan but accepted conversion as well. On Christmas Day 496, the prayers of Clotilda, Remigius, and Geneviève were answered. Clovis, King of the Franks, was baptized in Reims, along with three thousand Frankish warriors. Legend holds the cathedral was so packed with people that the cleric holding the sacred chrism could not get through the crowd, but Remigius looked to heaven and saw a dove descending with a vial of oil. Remigius took the oil from the dove and used it to anoint Clovis. This holy oil was used for the next 1,300 years to anoint the kings of France. After his baptism, Clovis worked to establish a strong relationship with the Church in several ways, such as instituting reforms and recognizing the independence of the Church in his territory.¹⁵³

The kingdom of the Franks, according to custom, was divided among the sons of Clovis upon the great king’s death. But the brothers quarreled, and Queen Clotilda witnessed bloody infighting among her sons over Gaul.¹⁵⁴ The saintly wife of Clovis outlived him by thirty-four years — decades she spent financing the construction of churches and monasteries and living a penitential life of prayer, first in Paris and then at the Shrine of Saint Martin of Tours. By her prayers, exemplary Christian living, and wifely vocation, she changed the course of Church history.

The impact of Clovis’s conversion on the Church was immense.¹⁵⁵ He was the only Catholic king in the west, and his conversion legitimatized the Faith in the eyes of his people, who had previously viewed it as the religion of the weak and conquered Gallo-Romans. The Franks would dominate the Continent for centuries, which contributed to the eventual conversion of the Arian Germanic tribes.

1. Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, Book II, 30, trans. Lewis Thorpe (New York: Penguin Books, 1974), 143.

2. There are two main sources for the vision. Eusebius records the vision in his Life of Constantine, written twenty years after the battle but told to him by Constantine himself, who provided the account to Eusebius under oath. The other source is provided by Lactantius in his De mortibus persecutorum. Some authors believe that the sign was a natural event known as a “halo-phenomenon” in which the “sun is surrounded by a circle of light that has two lesser suns on a horizontal axis to the right and left. When all three are visible the points of light extending out from the center form an image that resembles a cross in a circle.” See Robert Louis Wilken, The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 82.

3. He was baptized by the Arian heretic Eusebius of Nicomedia.

4. Over 50 percent of his appointments to these positions were given to Christians. See Rodney Stark, Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History (West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton, 2016), 57.

5. Michael Grant, Constantine the Great: The Man and His Times (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1993), 151.

6. Ibid., 105–107.

7. Philip Hughes, A History of the Church, Volume II: The Church and the World the Church Created (London: Sheed and Ward, 1993 [1979]), 3.

8. Ibid., 4.

9. Lactantius, De Mort. Pers., ch. 48. opera, ed. 0. F. Fritzsche, II, p 288 sq. (Bibl Patr. Ecc. Lat. XI). Translated in University of Pennsylvania. Dept. of History: Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History, (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press [1897?–1907?]), Vol 4:, 1, pp. 28–30.

10. Ibid.

11. Abbot Giuseppe Ricciotti, The Age of the Martyrs: Christianity from Diocletian (284) to Constantine (337), trans. Rev. Anthony Bull, C.R.L. (Rockford, IL: TAN Books and Publishers, Inc., 1999 [1959]), 220.

12. Constantine and his saintly mother, Helena, also engaged in other building projects that directly benefited the Church. Constantine built the first churches dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul in Rome. Helena traveled to the Holy Land, where she was able to locate many relics, including the True Cross. A large basilica was built that incorporated the site of Jesus’ crucifixion as well as his tomb. The structure was consecrated in the year 336 and became a favored place of pilgrimage for Christians from the west for centuries.

13. A distinction that will be useful for the reader: a synod can be a meeting of local or regional bishops or even representative bishops from throughout the world (but not all bishops). Small “c” councils are meetings of local bishops (synod and council can be synonymous). Big “C” Councils are ecumenical (all the bishops in world are invited). Synods and councils are only authoritative for the area or region.

14. See Rod Bennett, The Apostasy that Wasn’t: The Extraordinary Story of the Unbreakable Early Church (El Cajon, CA: Catholic Answers Press, 2015), 130.

15. Henry Chadwick, The Early Church, revised edition (New York: Penguin Books, 1993), 124.

16. Bennett, 138.

17. Grant, Constantine the Great, 171–172.

18. Ibid.

19. Jerome, Ad Paulium, epistle 5, quoted in Ricciotti, The Age of Martyrs, 247.

20. See Bennett, 214.

21. Hilaire Belloc, The Great Heresies (Rockford, IL: TAN Books and Publishers, Inc., 1991 [1938]), 11.

22. Other sources indicate the number was a little more than 200. See Wilken, The First Thousand Years, 91.

23. Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History, I:10, quoted in Bennett, 128.

24. Other names for the heresy are Sabellianism and Patripassianism.

25. The Nicene Creed is still recited at Mass today. Dan Brown in his The Da Vinci Code has a fictional dialogue between two characters who discuss the deliberations at the Council of Nicaea. Brown writes that the vote taken by the bishops was a “relatively close vote” — not only is his book pure fiction, but apparently his math is off as well! See Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code (New York: Doubleday, 2003), 233.

26. This precedent would become significant in future centuries during the medieval period and the establishment of papal inquisitors.

27. Saint Polycarp traveled to Rome to discuss the matter with Pope Saint Pius I in the second century.

28. Ricciotti, 269–270.

29. Wilken, The First Thousand Years, 99.

30. Saint Athanasius spent some time with Anthony in the desert before he became bishop. He also wrote a popular biography of the great saint in which he recorded that the hermit told the Alexandrians to “have no fellowship with the most impious Arians. For there is no communion between light and darkness.” Athanasius, Life of Saint Anthony, 69, quoted in Warren H. Carroll, The Building of Christendom: A History of Christendom, vol. 2 (Front Royal, VA: Christendom College Press, 1987), 21.

31. Wilken, The First Thousand Years, 101.

32. This is just one example of many in the lives of the saints of the axiom that holiness attracts. There is a deep desire in all human beings for communion with God, as we are all created in his image and likeness. Saints like Anthony illustrate through their lives that communion with God is possible, albeit in an imperfect manner this side of the veil, and that example attracts others.

33. Basil, Homily on the Creation of Man 1.17.

34. Basil, Epistle 190.1.

35. Henry Chadwick, The Church in Ancient Society: From Galilee to Gregory the Great (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 335.

36. Wilken, The First Thousand Years, 160.

37. Ibid., 160–162.

38. Ricciotti, 273.

39. Athanasius, De Incarnatione, 54, 3.

40. Bennett, 171.

41. Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History, I:28, quoted in Carroll, The Building of Christendom, 18.

42. Athanasius was bishop for forty-five years and spent twenty of them in exile.

43. Carroll, The Building of Christendom, 15.

44. Ricciotti, 280.

45. G.P. Baker, Constantine the Great and the Christian Revolution (New York: Cooper Square Press, 2001), 292.

46. Ibid., 309.

47. Rodney Stark, Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History (West Consho-hocken, PA: Templeton Press, 2016), 53.

48. Bennett, 216.

49. Ibid.

50. Ibid., 218.

51. Known as the Second Formula of Sirmium. There is some debate of whether Liberius actually signed the condemnation. Some sources indicate the story was propaganda created by the Arians citing the fact that when Liberius returned to Rome from exile he was treated as a conqueror. Athanasius and others believed Liberius signed the condemnation. Athanasius wrote, “Liberius, having been exiled, gave in after two years, and, in fear of the death with which he was threatened, signed.” (Hist. Ar., xli). He is the first pope not considered a saint, which is an indication that he likely did sign, although under extreme duress.

52. Régine Pernoud, Martin of Tours: Soldier, Bishop, Saint, trans. Michael J. Miller (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006), 42.

53. Jerome, Dialogue Against the Luciferians, 19.

54. Bennett, 207.

55. Robert Louis Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them, Second Edition (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1984), 164.

56. Wilken, The First Thousand Years, 119.

57. Julian, Against the Galilaeans, 39A, quoted in Adrian Murdoch, The Last Pagan: Julian the Apostate and the Death of the Ancient World (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2008), 132.

58. Adrian Goldsworthy, How Rome Fell: Death of a Superpower (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), 225.

59. Bennett, 252.

60. Hughes, A History of the Church, vol. I, 179.

61. Goldsworthy, How Rome Fell, 236.

62. See Bennett, 240, for the rebuilding of the Temple, and Wilken, The First Thousand Years, 120, for reinstatement of animal sacrifices.

63. Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae, book 23, chapter 1. Sozomen (c. 400–450), a Christian writer, confirms Marcellinus’s account. See Gary Michuta, Hostile Witnesses: How the Historic Enemies of the Church Prove Christianity (El Cajon, CA: Catholic Answers Press, 2016), 149.

64. The phrase may be legend. See Bennett, 256.

65. Augustine, The City of God, 5.26.

66. Wilken, The First Thousand Years, 95.

67. Theodosian Code XVI, 1, 2, quoted in Jean Comby, How to Read Church History: From the Beginnings to the Fifteenth Century, vol. I (New York: Crossroads, 2001), 73.