CHAPTER VI.

SUPPLEMENTARY.

 

While the empire was distracted by the Arian controversy, the gospel penetrated into some countries beyond the bounds of the Roman power.

Whatever may have been the effect produced in his native country by the conversion of Queen Candace’s treasurer, recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, it would appear to have been transitory; and the Ethiopian or Abyssinian church owes its origin to an expedition made early in the fourth century by Meropius, a philosopher of Tyre, for the purpose of scientific inquiry. On his voyage homewards, he and his companions were attacked at a place where they had landed in search of water, and all were massacred except two youths, Edesius and Frumentius, the relatives and pupils of Meropius. These were carried to the king of the country, who advanced Edesius to be his cupbearer, and Frumentius to be his secretary and treasurer. On the death of the king, who left a boy as his heir, the two strangers, at the request of the widowed queen, acted as regents of the kingdom until the prince came of age. Edesius then returned to Tyre, where he became a presbyter. Frumentius, who, with the help of such Christian traders as visited the country, had already introduced the Christian doctrine and worship into Abyssinia, repaired to Alexandria, related his story to Athanasius, and requested that a bishop might be sent to follow up the work; whereupon Athanasius, considering that no one could be so fit for the office as Frumentius himself, consecrated him to the bishopric of Axum. The church thus founded continues to this day subject to the see of Alexandria— “drinking”, as the Abyssinians themselves express it, “of the patriarch’s well”. Its metropolitan is always an Egyptian monk, chosen and consecrated by the Coptic patriarch

After the expulsion of Athanasius from his see in 356, Constantius wrote to the princes of Axum, desiring that they would not shelter the fugitive, and also that Frumentius might be sent to Alexandria, to receive instruction in the faith from the Arian bishop, George. Athanasius, however, was safe among the monks of Egypt, and it does not appear that the request as to Frumentius met with any attention.

An Arian missionary, named Theophilus, is celebrated by the historian of his party, Philostorgius, while his labours are not unnaturally overlooked by the orthodox writers. He was a native of the island of Diu, and, having been sent as a hostage to the imperial court, was consecrated as a bishop by Eusebius of Nicomedia. Theophilus preached in southern Arabia, and apparently also in Abyssinia and India, as well as in his native island. In India he is said to have found the remains of an older Christianity, which Philostorgius describes as heteroousian, (i.e., holding that the Persons of the Godhead differ in essence)—an assertion which seems to have had no other foundation than the fact that the Indians were unacquainted with the terms which had been introduced into the language of orthodox theology since the rise of the Arian controversy.

The conversion of the Iberians or Georgians is referred to the reign of Constantine. Some of these barbarians, on an incursion into the empire, had carried off among their captives a pious Christian woman, whose religious exercises and mortifications were observed with surprise and awe. After a time, a child—one of the king's children, according to Socrates—fell sick, and, agreeably to the custom of the country, was carried from one woman to another, in the hope that some one of them might be able to cure him. The captive, on being at length consulted, disclaimed all knowledge of physic, but, laying the child on a couch, said, “Christ, who healed many, will heal this child also”; when, at her prayer, the boy recovered. The queen was soon after cured in like manner; and the captive refused all recompense. Next day the king, while hunting among the mountains, found himself enveloped in a thick mist or darkness. After having called or his gods in vain, he bethought himself of applying to the stranger's God, and the darkness immediately cleared away. Other miracles are added to the story. The king and queen gave their people the example of conversion, and the Iberians, on application to Constantine, were supplied with a bishop and clergy

The Christian communities of Persia have been mentioned as existing in the earlier period. The faith continued to make progress in that country; and Constantine, soon after declaring his own conversion, wrote in favour of the Christians to Sapor II, who was king of Persia from 309 to 381. But the progress of a rival religion was watched with jealousy and alarm by the magi; and on the breaking out of a war between Sapor and Constantius, they represented to the king that the converts were attached to the Roman interest. A persecution was begun by Sapor’s subjecting the Christians to special and oppressive taxes. Their chief, Simeon, bishop of Seleucia and Ctesiphon, was then seized, and was tarried into the presence of the king, who required him to conform to the national religion, and, on his refusal, sentenced him to imprisonment. As he was led away, Uthazanes, an old eunuch, who had lately been persuaded to renounce Christianity, saluted him reverentially; but the bishop turned away his face. Uthazanes, deeply affected by the reproach, broke out into lamentation—“If my old and intimate friend thus disowns me, what may I expect from my God whom I have denied?”. For these words he was summoned before the king, and, after having withstood both threats and entreaties, was condemned to death. Uthazanes had brought up Sapor; he now begged a favour for the sake of his old kindness—that it might be proclaimed that he was not guilty of treason, but was executed solely for being a Christian. The king willingly assented, in the hope that the declaration would deter his subjects from Christianity; but an opposite effect followed, as the sight of the courage which could sacrifice even life for the gospel induced many to embrace the Christian faith. Simeon and many others were put to death. In the following year the severity of the persecution was increased; and notices of martyrdoms are found from time to time throughout the remainder of Sapor's reign.

We have already seen that the gospel was introduced among the Goths by captives who were carried off during the reigns of Valerian and Gallienus. Theophilus, bishop of the Goths, was among the members of the Nicene council, and seems to have been the immediate predecessor of Ulfilas, who, notwithstanding his Teutonic name, is said to have been descended from Cappadocian captives. Ulfilas was probably born in 318, and was consecrated as a bishop at the age of thirty—perhaps while employed on a legation to the emperor Constantius, in 348. In 355 the persecution of Athanaric, judge or prince of the Ostrogoths, who regarded the profession of Christianity as a token of inclination to the Roman interest, compelled the bishop to lead a large body of Goths across the Danube, and seek a refuge within the empire; and it would seem that this exodus, as well as his labours and influence among his people, contributed to suggest the title which was bestowed on him by Constantius,—“the Moses of the Goths”. About fifteen years later the persecution was renewed, and many of Athanaric’s subjects, who had embraced Christianity, were put to death. In 376 Ulfilas was employed by Fritigern, prince of the Visigoths—the division of the Gothic nation to which he himself belonged, and among which his labours had been chiefly exercised—to negotiate with Valens for permission to settle within the imperial territories; and on the revolt of the nation against their new protectors, he was sent on an unsuccessful mission to the emperor immediately before the battle of Adrianople. The death of Ulfilas took place in 388, at Constantinople, where he was endeavouring to mediate with Theodosius in behalf of his Arian subjects.

Ulfilas employed civilization as the handmaid of religion. To him his countrymen were indebted for the invention of an alphabet, and for a translation of the Scriptures—from which, it is said, the books of Samuel and Kings were excluded, lest their warlike contents should be found too congenial to the ferocity of the barbarians. The Goths received their bishop's words as law and through his influence they were unhappily drawn away from the orthodox faith, which they had at first professed. The date and the circumstances of this change are subjects of much disputed Ulfilas, indeed, appears to have been more distinguished for practical efficiency than for theological knowledge, and to have imperfectly apprehended the importance of the question between Arianism and Nicene orthodoxy. He is known to have been associated with Acacius and Eudoxius at Constantinople in 360, and to have signed the creed of Rimini; but it would seem that he nevertheless kept up his connection with the Catholics after that time, and that the distinct profession of Arianism among the Goths did not take place until the reign of Valens, when it became a condition of their admission into the emperor's dominions. When that heresy had been ejected from the church—when it had ceased to be debated in councils and to exercise the learning and the acumen of cultivated theologians—it gained a new importance as being the creed of the barbarian multitudes who overran the empire.

The existence of lately-founded churches among the Saracens on the borders of Arabia is mentioned by Eusebius. The roving bands of this wild people were greatly impressed by the life of the monks who had retired to the deserts, and they visited them with reverence. In the reign of Valens, a Saracen queen, named Mavia, who had been at war with the Romans, stipulated as a condition of peace that Moses, a solitary of renowned sanctity, should be given to her nation as bishop. Moses reluctantly consented to undertake the office, but absolutely refused to receive consecration from Lucius, the Arian bishop of Alexandria; and he was eventually consecrated by some of the orthodox bishops who were in exile.

RELATIONS OF CHURCH AND STATE.

For nearly three hundred years the church had been providentially left to develop itself as a society unconnected with the powers of this world, and by the time when its faith was adopted by the emperors of Rome, it had attained the condition of a great independent body, with a regular and settled organization. But, although it had thus far appeared as separate, it was not incapable of a connection with the state, in which the religious element should hallow the secular, while the secular power in turn should lend its influence for the advancement of religion. There was, however, danger lest, in such a connection, one or both of the parties should forget that the church is not a function of the state, but is itself a divinely-instituted spiritual kingdom; and, while it was thus possible that ecclesiastics might rely too much on the secular power, there was also the opposite danger, that they might assume towards it an authority professedly derived from heaven, but really unwarranted by any Christian principle.

When Constantine became a convert to the gospel, the change found both parties imperfectly prepared for understanding the relations which resulted from it. It was likely that the emperor, who was by office Pontifex Maximus—the highest minister of heathen religion, and knowing no authority in that system more sacred than his own,—would be unwilling to accept, or even unable to conceive, the different position which was assigned to him in his new communion. It was likely that the clergy, unused as they had hitherto been to intercourse with persons of such exalted rank, would be dazzled on finding themselves invited to associate with the sovereign of the Roman world, and would be disposed to allow him an undue control in spiritual affairs. Yet on the other hand, as Constantine became their pupil in religion, the power nominally exercised by the emperor was virtually wielded by those ecclesiastics who for the time held possession of his mind. And although the party which had the ascendency during the last years of his reign, and throughout that of Constantius, lent itself unduly to the assumptions of the emperors, yet this servility was not without some good effect, inasmuch as the imperial interference, however objectionable in itself, was thus veiled under the appearance of regular ecclesiastical proceedings. The deprivations, ejections, and intrusions of bishops were sanctioned by subservient synods; so that, in respect of form, the age of Constantine and Constantius has not left the embarrassing precedents which would have resulted if the temporal power had been arrayed on one side and the church on the other, without the intervention of a secular, unscrupulous, and numerous faction of ecclesiastics. And, lamentable as it is that, almost in the first years of the connection between church and state, the emperor should be seen on the side of heterodoxy, even this also had its advantage. Whereas the patronage and co-operation of the court might have lulled the orthodox into security, and they might thus have silently and unconsciously yielded up their rights, as suspecting no evil from a friend, the disfavour and discountenance which they met with guarded them against such submission; they were forced to declare at the earliest stage that the power of the emperor in spiritual things was not unlimited. And it may be matter of instruction and of comfort in later times, to know that any difficulties which may be experienced in dealing with those earthly powers to which Christians are bound to yield a willing obedience in all lawful things, were not without a parallel in that very age to which the imagination might be disposed to attribute almost an ideal perfection in respect of the relations between the church and the state.

Eusebius speaks of Constantine as a “kind of general bishop”, and elsewhere relates that the emperor once told some of his episcopal guests that, as they were bishops within the church, so he himself was bishop without it. The meaning of these words has been disputed with a zeal which would attribute too much both of precision and of importance to a saying sportively uttered at table; but it is at least certain that Constantine acted as if he believed himself entitled to watch over the church, to determine which of conflicting opinions was orthodox, and to enforce theological decisions by the strength of the secular power. His own appearance in the council of Nicaea while he was yet unbaptized, the presidency of Constantius, while only a catechumen, at the council of Antioch, and his deputation of lay officers to control the synods of Rimini and Seleucia, are instances of the manner in which the imperial superintendence was exerted. And yet (as has been before observed) in all these cases, whatever there may have been of lay control, the formal decision of matters was left to the voice of the bishops. The pains which were taken to draw prelates of high personal or official authority—such as Athanasius, Hosius, and Liberius— into a compliance with the measures of the court, are also a remarkable testimony to the importance which was attached to the episcopal judgments.

The introduction of general councils contributed greatly to increase the imperial influence. These assemblies were necessarily summoned by the emperor, since no spiritual authority possessed the universal jurisdiction which was requisite for the purpose; their decisions were confirmed by him, promulgated with his sanction, and enforced by civil penalties of his appointment.

The emperor was regarded as the highest judge in all causes. The bishops of Rome considered it a distinction to be allowed to plead for themselves before his judgment-seat, after the example of St. Paul. But it soon began to be felt that both bishops and presbyters were disposed to carry to the imperial tribunal matters in which the judgment of their brethren had been, or was likely to be, pronounced against them. In order to check this, the council of Antioch, in 341, and that of Sardica, in 347, passed canons, by which it was forbidden to haunt the court under pretext of suits, or to appeal to the emperor except with the consent of the metropolitan and other bishops of the province to which the appellant belonged. In the earlier times, it had been usual for Christians, in order to avoid the scandal of exposing their differences before heathen tribunals, to submit them to the arbitration of the bishops. The influence which the bishops had thus acquired was greatly increased by a law which is usually (though perhaps erroneously) referred to Constantine. It was ordered that, if both parties in a case consented to submit it to the episcopal decision, the sentence should be without appeal; and the secular authorities were charged to carry it out. Many later enactments relate to this subject. In some canons, persons who should decline the bishop's jurisdiction are censured as showing a want of charity towards the brethren. By this power of arbitration, the bishops were drawn into much secular business, and incurred the risk of enmity and obloquy. To some of them the judicial employment may possibly have been more agreeable than the more spiritual parts of their function; but many, like St. Augustine, felt it as a grievous burden and distraction, and some relieved themselves of the labour by appointing clerical or lay delegates to act for them.

Constantius in 355 enacted that bishops should be tried only by members of their own order—i.e., in synods. But this privilege was limited by Gratian, who in 376 ordered that matters which concerned religion and ecclesiastical discipline should belong to bishops and ecclesiastical synods, but that criminal jurisdiction should be reserved to the secular courts; and such was the general principle of the age. As, however, crimes are also sins, and the boundaries which separate ecclesiastical from secular questions are not always easy to determine, there arose frequent cases of difficulty between secular punishment and ecclesiastical penance; indeed, the legislation of the early part of the fifth century on this subject is inconsistent with itself—showing at once the weakness of the emperors and the watchfulness of the ecclesiastical authorities. In cases of crime the clerical office was not as yet supposed to carry with it any exemption from the secular jurisdiction.

The influence of the gospel, which had perhaps begun in some degree to affect the Roman legislation even while paganism was yet the religion of the state, was now more directly and more powerfully exerted in this respect. Moral offences, of which former legislation had taken no notice, were denounced; and at the same time a humaner spirit is found to interpose for the protection of the weak, for the restraint of oppression, and for the mitigation of cruel punishments. The bishops were often charged by law with the duty of befriending various classes of persons who might stand in need of assistance; thus a law of Honorius, in 409, which orders that judges should on every Sunday examine prisoners as to the treatment which they received, imposes on the bishops the duty of superintending its execution. As magistrates became Christian, the church exercised a supervision over them which was of considerable effect; and sometimes the clergy pronounced its censures on local governors who had exercised their power tyrannically. Thus Athanasius excommunicated a governor of Libya; and Synesius, bishop of Ptolemais, a generation later, excommunicated Andronicus, governor of Pentapolis.

Intercession for offenders became an acknowledged duty and privilege of the clergy, who often successfully interfered to save the lives of criminals in the hope that penance might enable them to make their peace with heaven. But this right of intercession was liable to abuse and corruption. Some of the clergy sold their influence for money; monks and others, in the latter part of the century, carried their extravagance so far as forcibly to rescue malefactors on the way to execution; and laws were enacted to check such perverse and disorderly exhibitions of humanity.

The privilege of asylum, which had belonged to some temples, became attached to all churches; and although the earliest laws on the subject date only from the last years of the century, they recognize the privilege as having long before existed on the ground of popular opinion. In the state of society which then was, the institution had many important uses; but corruptions naturally crept in, and against these edicts were issued. Thus Theodosius enacted in 392 that public debtors who took refuge in churches should be delivered up, or else that their debts should be paid by the bishop who sheltered them. The younger Theodosius, in 431-2, while he extended the right of sanctuary to the whole precinct which surrounded churches, found it expedient at the same time to guard the privilege against some misuses; and in the following century further restrictions were imposed by Justinian.

The Hierarchy.

Of the changes among the lower clergy during this period (besides the creation of some new offices which were required by the necessities of the church) may be mentioned the institution of two local fraternities: the copiatae of Constantinople and the parabolani of Alexandria.

The copiatae or fossarii (grave-diggers) were employed in burying the dead—especially the Christian poor, whose interment was free of cost; their number was 1100 under Constantine, but was reduced to 950 by a law of the younger Theodosius. It appears that similar guilds were established in other populous cities. The parabolani (so called from the hazardous nature of their duties) were appointed to attend on the sick. In the dissensions of the Alexandrian church they acquired a character for turbulence, so that in 416 the inhabitants of the city preferred a complaint against them to Theodosius the Second. The parabolani were therefore laid under some restraints by the emperor, and their number was reduced to 500; but two years later it was raised to 600. Both the copiatae and the parabolani were reckoned as belonging to the clergy, and enrolment among them was sought for the sake of the privileges and exemptions which were attached to it. In many cases the membership appears to have been honorary—persons of wealth paying for admission, enjoying the immunities, and taking no share in the duties. Against this corruption a law of Theodosius II was directed.

The deacons, whose number in some of the greater churches was still limited to seven, acquired an increase of importance in proportion to the greater wealth which was entrusted to their administration. The power of baptizing and of preaching was now occasionally conferred on them, and some of them even took on themselves the priestly function as to the consecration of the Eucharist; but this usurpation was strongly forbidden. In some cases they claimed precedence of the presbyters, and would have regarded it as a degradation to be ordained to the presbyterate, so that canons were even found necessary to check their assumptions. In every considerable church one of the deacons presided over the rest. It is uncertain at what time this office of archdeacon was introduced : at Carthage it would seem to have been towards the end of the third century, as it is not mentioned by St. Cyprian, whereas, about fifty years later, Cecilian is described as archdeacon to Mensurius. The distinction of one deacon above his brethren may perhaps have been originally a matter of personal eminence, and may have afterwards come to be established as official. The archdeacon was appointed by the bishop; he was his chief assistant in the government of the church, and was generally regarded as likely to succeed to the bishopric. In the end of the fourth century a similar presidency over the presbyters was given in some churches to an archpriest (archipresbyter) —to whom the administration of the diocese was intrusted in the absence or incapacity of the bishop.

The position of the chorepiscopi was found to excite the jealousy of the superior bishops. Their functions were therefore more strictly limited by canons, and in some quarters a movement was made for the suppression of the office. The council of Laodicea forbids the appointment of bishops in villages and country places; it orders that, in their stead, presbyters with the title of periodentae (circuit-visitors)—answering to the archdeacons or rural deans of our own church—should be employed, and that the chorepiscopi already ordained should do nothing without the approbation of the city bishops. In the following century, however, chorepiscopi are mentioned as sitting in the council of Chalcedon, although only as delegates of other bishops; and the title is found much later, both in the east and in the west. Thus, the second council of Nicaea, in 787, speaks of chorepiscopi as ordaining readers by permission of the bishops,—a notice which seems to imply that they then belonged to the order of presbyters, and were much the same with the periodentae intended by the Laodicean canon. The western chorepiscopi of the eighth and ninth centuries will come under our notice hereafter.

The system of distinctions within the order of bishops was now carried out more fully than in the former period. The religious divisions of the Roman world had generally followed the civil divisions, although this rule was not without exceptions; and thus, when Constantine introduced a new partition of the empire into dioceses, each of which embraced several provinces, a nearly corresponding arrangement naturally followed in the church. The bishop of the chief city in each diocese rose to a pre-eminence above the other metropolitans. These bishops usually received in the east the title of exarch, and in the west that of primate; the most eminent of them were afterwards styled patriarchs—a title which had formerly been given to all bishops, and of which the new and restricted sense appears to have been adopted from the Jews. The degree of authority exercised by patriarchs or exarchs was not uniform. It was greatest at Alexandria, where the patriarch had the right of consecrating all the bishops of Egypt and Libya without the intervention of metropolitans. The bishop of Rome had a like power within his narrower jurisdiction, where, as in Egypt, the grade of metropolitans had not yet been introduced; but in other countries it was usual that the chief bishop should consecrate the metropolitans, and that these should consecrate the inferior bishops.

With the introduction of the larger ecclesiastical divisions came that of synods collected from their whole extent. The patriarchs or exarchs presided; and these councils became the highest ordinary authorities in the affairs of the church.

The council of Nicaea recognizes three principal sees—Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch—as presiding over the churches in their respective quarters. Each of these three was at once the church of a great capital, and was reckoned to have the honour of apostolical foundation. From the time when Constantine raised Byzantium to its new dignity, the bishopric of that city, which had previously been subject to the metropolitan of Heraclea, the civil capital of Thrace, necessarily became an important position, insomuch that, even before any formal grant of ecclesiastical privileges or precedence had as yet been conferred on it, Eudoxius was supposed to be promoted by a translation to Constantinople from the great and venerable see of Antioch. The second general council enacted that the bishop of Constantinople should stand next to the bishop of Rome, “forasmuch as it is a new Rome”—a reason which clearly shows that, in the opinion of the assembled bishops, the secular greatness of the old capital was the ground on which its ecclesiastical precedence rested. The honour thus bestowed on Constantinople was not, however, accompanied by any gift of jurisdiction.

The causes which, during the earlier period, had acquired for Rome a pre-eminence over all other churches were, in the fourth century, reinforced by new and important circumstances. Although within his own city the bishop was restrained by the prevalence of heathenism among the nobility, the removal of the court gave him a position of independence and importance beyond what he could have obtained if the imperial splendour had been displayed on the same scene with his own dignity; and the Arian controversies greatly increased his influence in relation to the whole church. In the distractions of the eastern Christians, the alliance of the west was strongly desired by each party. The bishop of Rome, as being the chief pastor in the western church, naturally became the organ of communication with his oriental brethren, to whom he appeared as the representative of the whole west, and almost as wielding its entire authority. Even where one of the oriental parties protested against his interference, the Roman bishop gained by the application of the other party for his aid, or by its consent to his proceedings. Except during the temporary lapse of Liberius, the Roman influence was steadily on the side of orthodoxy, and as Rome thus stood in honourable contrast with the variations of the eastern bishops, its constancy acquired for it strength as well as credit, and the triumph of the cause which it had espoused contributed to the elevation of the see. Moreover, the old civil analogy introduced a practice of referring for advice to Rome from all parts of the west. The earliest extant answer to such an application is the synodical letter of Siricius to Himerius, bishop of Tarragona. But by degrees these “decretal epistles” rose more and more from a tone of advice to one of direction and command; and they were no longer written in the name of a synod, but in that of the pope alone.

The records of this time, however, while they show the progress of Rome towards the position which she afterwards attained, are utterly subversive of the pretence that that position belonged to her from the beginning, and by virtue of divine appointment. Thus, when the council of Nicaea, with a view to the schism of the Egyptian Meletius, ordained that the bishop of Alexandria should, agreeably to ancient custom, have jurisdiction over Egypt, Libya, and the Pentapolis, “forasmuch as this is also customary for the Roman bishop”—and further, that “in Antioch and in other provinces the privileges of churches should be preserved”—it is evident that no other right over his suffragans is ascribed to the bishop of Rome than that which is also acknowledged to belong to the bishop of Alexandria; and that the privileges of these and of other sees are alike referred to ancient usage as their common foundation.

Again, when the council of Sardica enacted that any bishop who should wish to appeal from a synod might, with the consent of his judges, apply to Julius, bishop of Rome, and that, if the bishop of Rome thought fit, a new trial should be granted1—it is clear that the power assigned to the Roman bishop is not recognized is one which he before possessed, but was then conferred by the council. The bishop of Rome had no power of evoking the cause from before another tribunal; he had no personal voice in the decision; he could only receive appeals on the application of the councils from which they were made—the power of making such appeals being limited to bishops—and commit the trial of them to the bishops bordering on the appellant's province, with the addition, if he should think fit, of legates representing himself. Moreover, as the council of Sardica was composed of western bishops only, there was no pretext for enforcing this canon on the eastern church; and, as the occasion which led to the enactment was temporary, so the mention of Julius by name, without any reference to his successors, seems to indicate that the power conferred was temporary and personal, and was granted in consideration of the pledges which the Roman bishop had given for his adherence to the orthodox cause. Indeed, it may be said that this power was only such as in ordinary circumstances would have been acknowledged to belong to the emperor, and that it was transferred to Julius, because the exercise of it could not be safely left in the hands of the Arian Constantius. In like manner, when Gratian, in 378, with a view of withdrawing the partisans of Ursicinus from secular tribunals, acceded to the request of a Roman synod that the judgment of them should be committed to Damasus, the temporary and special nature of the grant is inconsistent with any such idea as that the jurisdiction of which it speaks had before belonged to the bishops of Rome, or was an ordinary prerogative of their office.

The old Latin version of the Nicene canons, and Rufinus in his summary of them, define the jurisdiction of the Roman bishop as extending over the “suburbicarian churches”. The name of suburbicarian was given to the provinces which composed the civil diocese of Rome—the seven provinces of middle and lower Italy, with the islands of Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily. To these the patriarchate of Rome was then limited—Milan, Aquileia, and afterwards Ravenna, being independent centres of ecclesiastical government. And since both language and historical facts combine to support this view, it needless to consider seriously such constructions of the, canon as that which would persuade us that by the “suburbicarian churches” were meant all those of the western empire, or even all the churches of the world!

The interference of the Roman bishop was still resisted whenever he attempted to invade the privileges of other churches. The African and the eastern churches acted throughout in entire independence of the Roman authority, and frequent canons were made against carrying causes out of the provinces to which they belonged. There was no idea of any divine right of superiority to other churches; for, although it was often said that the bishop of Rome ought to be honoured as the successor of St. Peter, that apostle himself was not yet regarded as more than the first among equals, nor were his successors supposed to have inherited any higher distinction above their brethren in the episcopate.

From the time of Constantine the members of the Christian ministry attained a new social position, with secular advantages which had until then been unknown. The exemption from curial offices, which was granted to them by the first Christian emperor, was, indeed, withdrawn or limited by his successors; but they enjoyed a valuable privilege in their freedom from all ‘sordid’ offices, and from some of the public imposts, although still liable to the land-tax, and to most of the ordinary burdens. The taxes to be paid by ecclesiastics who were engaged in trade were regulated by laws of Constantius, Valentinian, and Gratian; and from the fact that such laws were passed, rather than a prohibition of trading, it may probably be inferred that resources of this kind were still necessary for the support of some among the clergy. The wealth of the body, however, was vastly increased. Constantine, besides munificent occasional gifts, bestowed on them a stated allowance of corn, which was revoked by Julian. Jovian restored a third part of this, and promised to add the rest when the cessation of a famine then raging should enable him to do so; but his reign ended before he could fulfil his intention, and the promise was disregarded by his successors. Tithes were now paid—not, however, by legal compulsion, but as a voluntary offering, so that we need not wonder to find complaints of difficulty and irregularity in the payment; and a very great addition of riches flowed in on the church in consequence of the law of Constantine which allowed it to receive bequests of property.

These changes naturally operated for evil as well as for good. For the sake of the secular benefits connected with the ministry, many unfit persons sought ordination; while the higher dignities of the church became objects of ambition for men whose qualifications were not of a spiritual kind. At the election of a bishop, unworthy arts were employed by candidates; accusations which, whether true or false, give no agreeable idea of the prevailing tone of morals, were very commonly brought by each faction against the favourite of its opponents; and disgraceful tumults often took place.

The intercourse of courts was a trial for the bishops; while in many it naturally produced subserviency, in others it led to a mistaken exaltation of spiritual dignity in opposition to secular rank. Thus, it is told with admiration that St. Martin of Tours, when at the court of Maximus, allowed the empress to wait on him at table; and that, when the emperor had desired him to drink first, and expected to receive the cup back from him, the bishop passed it to his own chaplain, as being higher in honour than any earthly potentate.

Luxury and pride increased among the clergy of the great cities. St. Jerome agrees with Ammianus Marcellinus as to the excessive pomp by which the Roman hierarchy was distinguished, the splendour of their dress and equipages, the sumptuousness of their feasts; while the heathen historian bears a testimony which is above suspicion to the contrast presented by the virtue, simplicity, and self-denial of the provincial bishops and clergy in general. Praetextatus, an eminent pagan magistrate, who was concerned in suppressing the feuds of Damasus and Ursicinus, sarcastically told Damasus that he himself would forthwith turn Christian, if he might have the bishopric of Rome. The emperors found it necessary to restrain by law the practices of monks and clergy for obtaining gifts and legacies. Thus Valentinian, by a law which was addressed to Damasus, and was read in all the churches of the capital, enacted that ecclesiastics and monks should not haunt the houses of widows or of female wards; and that they should not accept anything by donation or will from women who were connected with them by spiritual ties. Jerome, who draws many lively pictures of the base devices by which some of his brethren insinuated themselves into the favour of wealthy and aged persons, says, with reference to this edict, “I do not complain of the law, but I grieve that we should have deserved it”. Other acts followed, annulling all dispositions of property which women on professing a religious life might make to the prejudice of their natural heirs, and guarding against the evasions which might be attempted by means of fictitious trusteeships. Such bequests were, however, discouraged and often refused by the more conscientious bishops, such as St. Ambrose and St. Augustine. And while we note the facts which show how in this age, as in every other, the church but too truly realized those parables which represent it as containing a mixture of evil amidst its good, we must not overlook the noble spirit of munificence and self-denial which animated multitudes of its bishops and clergy, or their exertions in such works of piety and charity as the relief of the poor, the redemption of captives, the erection of hospitals, and the adornment of the divine worship.

The changes of the fourth century tended to depress the popular element in the church. By the acknowledgment of their religion on the part of the state, by the increase of wealth, by their intercourse with personages of the highest rank, by the frequency of synods collected from large divisions of the church, and limited to their own order, by the importance which accrued to them when questions of theology entered into politics, and agitated the whole empire—the bishops were raised to a greater elevation than before above the other orders of the clergy. The administration of the church was more thrown into their hands; and in the election of bishops the influence of the order became greater, chiefly in consequence of the factions of the people. Thus, when a vacant see was disputed by exasperated parties, it often happened that the prelates whose business it was to ratify the election, suggested a third candidate by way of compromise, and that their nomination was accepted. In some cases the election, instead of being held in the city for which a bishop was to be appointed, was transferred to the metropolis of the province. The privilege of choice, which was often injudiciously used by the multitude, was gradually limited by canons which fixed the qualifications for the episcopate. And, although the right of voting was not yet restricted to persons of superior station, the emperor swayed the elections to the greater sees—especially those of the cities in which he resided—and sometimes directly nominated the bishops.

The orders of the ministry remained as before, but it was not usual to proceed regularly through the lower grades to the higher. Thus we find that very commonly deacons were raised to the episcopate, or readers to the presbyterate, without passing through even a symbolical ordination to the intermediate offices; and we have seen in the instances of Ambrose and Nectarius that even unbaptized persons were chosen for bishops, and, after receiving baptism, were advanced at once to the highest order of the ministry.

The practice of forcible ordinations was a remarkable feature of this age. The only expedient by which a person could protect himself against the designs of a bishop or a congregation who considered him fit for spiritual office, was that of swearing that he would not submit to be ordained; for it was thought that one who had taken an oath of this kind ought not to be compelled to forswear himself. When the custom of such ordinations had been introduced, reluctance to undertake the ministerial function was often feigned for the purpose of gaining importance. Both forced ordinations and the hasty promotion of neophytes were after a time forbidden by canons and by imperial edicts, in some of which a curious distinction was made between the case of bishops who had been ordained without their own consent, and that of presbyters or lower clergy in like circumstances. The latter were allowed to renounce their orders; but this liberty was denied to the bishops, on the ground that none were really worthy of the episcopate but such as were chosen against their will. In the fifth century, ordination began to be employed as a means of disqualifying persons who had been unfortunate in political life for taking any further part in the public affairs of the world. Some of the latest emperors of the west were set aside by this expedient.

The influence of the monastic spirit tended to advance the practice of celibacy among the clergy, and the opinion of its obligation. At the council of Nicaea, it was proposed that married bishops, presbyters, and deacons should be compelled to abstain from intercourse with their wives; but Paphnutius, an Egyptian bishop, strongly opposed the motion. He dwelt on the holiness of Christian marriage, and represented the inexpediency of imposing on the clergy a yoke which many of them might be unable to bear, and which might therefore become the occasion of sin, and injurious to the church. It was, he said, enough to adhere to the older law, by which marriage after the reception of the higher orders was forbidden. The argument was strengthened by the character of the speaker. He was honoured as a confessor, having lost his right eye and had his left thigh hamstrung in the last persecution; he had a high reputation for sanctity, so that he was even supposed to possess miraculous power; his motives were above suspicion, as he himself lived in celibacy and strict asceticism. Under his guidance, therefore, the council rejected the proposal; and the example thus set by the most revered of ecclesiastical assemblies was followed in other quarters. Thus, the council of Gangra, which was held chiefly for the consideration of the errors imputed to Eustathius of Sebaste, condemns, among other extravagances connected with this subject, the refusal to communicate with married priests. And in the eastern churches generally, although the practice of celibacy or of abstinence from conjugal intercourse became usual, it continued to the end of the century to be voluntary.

In the west, an important step towards the establishment of celibacy was taken by Siricius, in his decretal epistle of the year 385, addressed to Himerius, bishop of Tarragona. After stating that some clergymen had had children, and had defended themselves by pleading the Mosaic law, he argues that the cases are unlike, inasmuch as among the Jews the priesthood was hereditary, whereas among Christians it is not so; and further that, as the Jewish priests separated themselves from their wives during the periods of ministering in the temple, so for the Christian clergy, who are always on duty, the separation must be perpetual. He ordered that presbyters and deacons should abstain from their wives; that such as had before violated this rule through ignorance should be allowed to retain their places, but on condition of observing continence, and without the hope of promotion; that if any one attempted to defend the contrary practice, he should be deposed; that no man who had married a widow, or who had been more than once married, should be eligible to the ministry; and that clergy contracting such marriages should be deposed. The frequency of enactments in pursuance of this decretal, and the mitigations of its provisions which some of them contain, indicate that great difficulty was found in enforcing it; and this inference is amply supported by other facts.

In proportion as the marriage of ecclesiastics was discouraged, the practice of entertaining female companions or attendants in their houses increased. The council of Nicaea enacted that no women should be admitted in this capacity, except such as from near relationship or from age might be regarded as beyond suspicion of improper familiarity with the clergy.

Monasticism.

THE monastic life received a vast impulse during the fourth century. As the profession of Christianity was no longer a mark of separation from the mass of men, some further distinction appeared necessary for those who aspired to a higher life. Moreover, with the cessation of persecution the opportunities of displaying heroism in confession and martyrdom had ceased. Hence many persons, seeing the corruption which was now too manifest in the nominally Christian society, and not understanding that the truer and more courageous course was to work in the midst of the world and against evil, thought to attain a more elevated spirituality by withdrawing from mankind and devoting themselves to austerity of life and to endeavours after undisturbed communion with heaven.

Paul, who has been mentioned as the first Christian hermit, spent his life, from twenty-three to a hundred and thirteen, in the desert, without contemporary fame or influenced In the year of his retirement, A.D. 251, the more celebrated Antony was born of Christian parents at Coma, a village in the Thebaid. We are told by his biographer (who, if he was not himself the great Athanasius, is supposed to have written under his influence) that in boyhood and youth Antony showed a thoughtful and religious character. He had learnt to read and write his native Coptic, but never acquired even the alphabet of Greek, and was unable to speak that language. Before reaching the age of twenty he lost his parents, and came into possession of a considerable property. One day he was struck by hearing in church the gospel of the rich young man, who was charged to sell all that he had, give to the poor, and follow the Saviour, that he might have treasure in heaven. Antony forthwith made over his land to the inhabitants of his village, turned the rest of his estate into money, and bestowed all on the poor, except a small portion which he reserved for the maintenance of his only sister. On another occasion he was impressed in like manner by the words, “Take no thought for the morrow”, and, in order to fulfil the command, he parted with the remainder of his property, committed his sister to a society of religious virgins, and embraced an ascetic life.

At first he took up his abode near his own village; for, says his biographer, such was then the practice of those who desired to live religiously, when as yet there were no monasteries in the desert. He laboured with his own hands, and gave away all that he could spare from his necessities. He visited all the most famous ascetics whom he could hear of —endeavouring to learn from each his distinguishing virtue, and to combine all their graces in his own practice. After a time he shut himself up in a tomb, from which he removed, ten years later, to a ruined castle near the Red Sea. But, although he continually increased his mortifications, he found that temptation followed him from one retreat to another. He fancied himself beset by devils in all manner of frightful shapes, and at other times by worldly thoughts or by sensual enticements. The noise of his conflicts with the enemy was heard by those who passed by his dwelling; more than once he was found almost dead from the chastisement which had been inflicted on him by his ghostly assailants. Antony became famous: many persons made pilgrimages to see him; and having spent twenty years in his castle, without either leaving its walls or admitting any one within them, he went forth and received disciples, who settled around him, studding the desert with their cells.

The persecution under Maximin drew Antony to Alexandria, where he attended on the sufferers, and in every possible exposed himself to death; but when the heat of the danger had passed over, he concluded that the crown of martyrdom, to which he had aspired, was not intended for him, and, wishing to escape from the oppressiveness of the admiration which waited on him, he sought out, under the guidance of some Saracens, who were miraculously thrown in his way, a solitude more remote than that in which he had before lived. His abode was now a cave in the side of a lofty mountain, with a supply of cool water and the shade of a few palm-trees beside it; he cultivated a small patch of corn and vegetables, that he might be able not only to spare others the labour of supplying him with bread, but to furnish something for the refreshment of visitors. The beasts of the desert, in resorting to the water, damaged his crops; but he gently laid hold of one, and said to them, “Why do you injure me, when I do you no hurt? Depart, and, in the name of the Lord, come hither no more!” and his charge was obeyed. The more Antony withdrew from the world, the mere eagerly was he followed. Multitudes flocked to him, and imitators of his manner of life arose in great numbers. He reconciled enemies, comforted mourners, and advised in spiritual concerns.

His interposition was often requested in behalf of the oppressed, and was never exerted in vain. When any such business had drawn him to leave his cell, he returned as soon as possible: “A monk out of his solitude”, he said, “is like a fish out of water”. Constantine and his sons sought his correspondence, entreated his prayers, and invited him to their courts; but, instead of being elated by the honour, he said to his disciples, “Marvel not if the emperor writes to us, since he is a man; but rather marvel that God hath written his laws for men, and hath spoken them to us by his Son”. In the Arian controversies, Antony and his monks were steady and powerful supporters of orthodoxy. He wrote to Constantine, urging the recall of Athanasius from his first exile, and received an answer expressed in terms of high respect. In order to aid the orthodox cause, he paid a second visit to Alexandria, where his appearance made even a greater impression than before, and many pagans were converted in consequence. He was favoured with visions and revelations for the comfort of the brethren in the faith; and in cases of doubt he prayed for direction, and received instructions from above. Innumerable miracles were ascribed to him, and he supposed himself to work them, but was free from all pride on account of the gift. His ghostly enemies still continued their assaults, and philosophers frequently attacked him, in the hope of turning his illiteracy into ridicule; but the firmness of his faith, together with his natural shrewdness, gave him the victory alike over men and demons. Severe as his habits were, he had nothing of the savageness which became too common among his followers; he well understood the dangers of the solitary life, and was earnest in warning against a reliance on the mere outward form of monachism.

Antony lived to the age of a hundred and five, and died a few days before Athanasius sought a refuge among the monks of the desert in 356. Of his two sheepskins he bequeathed one to the bishop of Alexandria, and the other to Serapion, bishop of Thmuis. A cloak, the gift of Athanasius, which had been worn for many years, was to be restored to the donor, and the hermit's garment of hair-cloth fell to two disciples who had long been his especial attendants. He charged these disciples to bury him in a place unknown to all but themselves, lest his remains should be embalmed and kept above ground—a manner of showing reverence to deceased saints which he had often endeavoured to suppress.

The coenobitic system—that of ascetics living in a community —originated with Pachomius, who was, like Antony, a native of the Thebaid. The founder was born in 292, was converted to Christianity, and practised rigid austerities under the direction of a solitary named Palaemon, until he was visited by an angel, who told him that, as he had made sufficient progress in the monastic life, he must now become a teacher of others, and gave him a code of rules, written on a brazen tablet, which the disciples of Pachomius professed to have in their possession. Pachomius then instituted a society in an island of the Nile called Tabenne, which had been indicated to him by a voice from heaven. The brotherhood was soon extended, so that before the founder’s death it embraced eight monasteries, with 3,000 inmates (of whom 1,400 were in the mother-establishment): and in the beginning of the following century the whole number of monks was not less than 5o,ooo.

The monks lived in cells, each of which contained three. They were under engagements of absolute obedience to the commands of a chief, who was called abbot (from a Syriac word signifying father), or archimandrite (from the Greek mandra, a sheepfold). Under him each of the monasteries was governed by a head of its own, and the chief abbot from time to time made a circuit of visitation. The whole society assembled at the mother monastery twice every year —at the Easter festival and in the month of August. The monks were, by direction of the brazen tablet, divided into twenty-four classes, which took their names from the Greek alphabet, and were arranged according to the characters of the individuals; thus the simplest were in the class which bore the name of the letter I, while the more knowing were ranked under the letters of more complicated form. A strict community of all things was enforced, so that it was considered as a serious breach of discipline to speak of ‘my’ coat, or book, or pen. The monks employed themselves in agriculture, basket-weaving, rope-making, and other kinds of industry. The produce of their labour was carried down the Nile in boats belonging to the society, and manned by monks; and the money which it fetched in the markets at Alexandria was not only enough for their own support, but enabled them to perform works of charity. They prayed many times a day, fasted on the fourth and sixth days of the week, and communicated on the Sabbath and oil the Lord's day. Their meals were taken in common—each being preceded by psalmody. They ate in silence, and with their hoods drawn over their faces, so that no one might see his neighbours, or anything but the fare set before him. The heavenly rule was not stringent as to the quantity of food—ordaining only that each monk should labour in proportion to his eating; but most of them carried their abstinence beyond the letter of its requirements. The sick were tended with remarkable care. The monks had a peculiar dress, the chief article of which was a goatskin, in imitation of Elijah, who was regarded as a pattern of the monastic life. They were never to undress, except that at communicating they unloosened their girdles. They slept with their clothes on, and in chairs so constructed as to keep them almost in a standing posture.

Pachomius had a sister, whom the fame of his institution induced to visit Tabenne. On being informed of her arrival, the abbot desired the porter of the monastery to beg that she would be content with the assurance of his welfare; and to inform her that, if she were disposed to imitate his manner of life, he would cause a monastery to be provided for her at a distance from him. This message had the effect which Pachomius intended; the monastery was built for his sister by monks from Tabenne; and in a short time she found herself abbess of a large community of women, regulated by a code which her brother had framed on the model of his own, and subject to his orders, although he never personally visited it. After this first example the formation of such societies was rapid—the female recluses being styled nuns—a title of uncertain derivation and meaning. Pachomius died in 348.

About the same time when Pachomius established his order at Tabenne, the elder Macarius took up his abode in the desert of Scetis—a vast solitude near the Libyan frontier of Egypt—and Ammon settled on the Nitrian or Nitre mountain. Around these chiefs were soon gathered large numbers of monks, living in separate cells, which either were solitary or were grouped together in clusters called laurae. The monks met on the first and last days of the week for public worship; if any one were absent it was concluded that he must be sick, and some of the brethren were sent to visit his cell. Except on such occasions they never spoke. The Nitrian monks were reckoned to be about 5,000 in the end of the century.

The monastic system was speedily extended beyond the borders of Egypt. In Syria it was introduced by Hilarion, a pupil and imitator of Antony, who lived fifty years in the desert near Gaza. In Mesopotamia it was eagerly welcomed, and derived especial lustre from the genius and piety of the mystic St. Ephrem. Eustathius bishop of Sebaste established monasteries in Armenia, and, as has been already mentioned, St. Basil organized societies of coenobites in Pontus and Cappadocia. Athanasius, on his visit to Rome in 340, was accompanied by some Egyptian monks, who were the first that were seen in the west. Their wild and rude appearance excited the disgust of the Romans, but with many this feeling was soon exchanged for reverence. The profession of religious celibacy found votaries among the younger ladies of the capital, and among the earliest of these who embraced it was Marcellina, the sister of St. Ambrose. The zeal with which Ambrose, after becoming a bishop, advocated the cause of celibacy, may perhaps have been in some measure prompted by his sister. He wrote treatises on the subject, maintaining that young women ought to embrace the virgin life in defiance of the will of their parents, and fortifying his argument by tales of judgments which had befallen persons who dared to dissuade their relatives from such a course. He extolled virginity in his sermons — even (as he says) to the weariness of his hearers. The matrons of his city endeavoured to preserve their daughters from the fascination of these discourses by forcibly keeping them at home; but crowds of virgins from other quarters—some of them even from Mauritania—flocked to seek consecration at the hands of the bishop of Milan. The little islands on the coasts of Italy and Dalmatia became sprinkled with monasteries and cells. St. Martin, who had lived as a monk in the island of Gallinaria, introduced monasticism into Gaul, built religious houses near Poitiers and Tours, and was followed to his grave by two thousand of the brethren. In Africa monasticism made less progress than elsewhere. It did not obtain any footing until it was introduced by St. Augustine, within the last ten years of the century; nor was the authority of that great bishop, or even the example which he gave by living in coenobite fashion with his clergy, sufficient to attract to the monastic life any but persons of the Tower ranks. Salvian, about the year 450, witnesses that it still continued to be unpopular in Africa, and that monks were objects of persecution in that country.

The rules and habits of the monastic societies differed according to circumstances, and according to the judgment of their founders. Industrial occupations —such as field-labour, building, weaving, or the manufacture of nets, baskets, and sandals—were generally prescribed in the east, and Augustine wrote a treatise against those monks who wished to be exempt from these employments. But St. Martin regarded such things as likely to become hindrances to devotion, and would allow no other manual work than that the younger brethren should transcribe books. The monks of Gaul, indeed, having ample employment for their energies in combating the idolatry and superstition of the barbarians among whom they were placed, did not need to have their hours relieved from vacancy in the same manner as the inhabitants of the Egyptian or Syrian deserts. As to food and clothing, also, the varieties of climate were considered. “A large appetite”, says Martin’s biographer, “is gluttony in Greeks, but in Gauls it is nature”.

Pachomius required a probation of three years before admission into his order, and a similar rule was adopted in other societies. There was as yet no vow exacted at entrance, although St. Basil suggests that a formal profession should be required; nor was the profession of monasticism irrevocable, for, although withdrawal was a subject for penance, it was yet in some cases even recommended as the safest course.

All the chief teachers of the age, both in the east and in the west, vied with each other in the praise of celibacy and monasticism. St. Jerome, in particular—the most learned man of his day, who may be regarded as the connecting link between the eastern and the Latin divisions of the church—exercised a powerful influence in the promotion of monachism, and the story of his life belongs in great part to the general history of the subject.

This celebrated teacher of the church —in whom we see extraordinary intellectual gifts and a sincere zeal for the service of Christ strangely combined with extravagance of opinion and conduct, greediness of power and authority, pride, vanity, violent irritability, and ex­treme bitterness of temper— was born of Christian parents at Stridon, on the borders of Pannonia and Dalmatian He studied at Rome under Donatus, the commentator on Virgil, and, after having reached manhood, felt himself called to a religious life, and was baptized. After having travelled in Gaul and other countries, he withdrew in 374 to the desert of Chalcis, eastward of Syria, where he entered on a course of the most violent mortifications. But the impulses of sensuality, to which he confesses that he had yielded before his baptism, revived in the solitude where he had hoped to find freedom from temptation. He strove against them by fasting and prayer; and, wishing to add some humiliating occupation to these exercises, he began the study of Hebrew under a converted Jew—the language being recommended for his purpose by the indignity of learning an alphabet, by the unmusical sound of the words, and by the unadorned plainness (as Jerome considered it) of the sacred writings. The acquisition proved valuable in a degree more than sufficient to compensate for the injury which he tells us that his Latin style, and even his pronunciation, had suffered from it.

Jerome had devoted himself with zeal to classical literature, while he despised the Scriptures for their simplicity. The bent of his studies was changed by a remarkable incident, either while he was residing at Antioch before betaking himself to the desert, or during his retirement. He had a severe illness, and was supposed to be dead, when he found himself placed in the presence of the Judge, and, on being asked his condition, answered that he was a Christian. “Thou liest”, it was said; “thou art not a Christian, but a Ciceronian; for where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also”. He was severely beaten, but at his earnest entreaty, and through the intercession of the saints who stood around, his life was spared in pity of his youth. He swore never again to open a heathen book, and on returning to the world found, as he tells us, that his shoulders were black and his body aching from the blows which he had received. Jerome seems to have afterwards dealt with this story according to his convenience—treating it as a solemn reality when he wished to dissuade others from the study of secular learning, and as a mere dream when he found himself unable to deny that he had not strictly observed his oath. In later ages his vision was often pleaded in favour both of an indolent unwillingness to study and of a fanatical contempt of letters.

The controversies of the time disquieted even the desert. Jerome quarrelled with the neighbouring monks as to the disputes of Meletius, Paulinus, and the Apollinarian Vitalis for the possession of the see of Antioch, and as to the use of the term hypostasis. An appeal to Damasus of Rome for direction seems to have decided him in favour of Paulinus he left the desert in 377, and in the following year was ordained presbyter by that bishop, with a stipulation that he should not be bound to any particular sphere of duty. After having spent some time at Constantinople, during the episcopate of Gregory Nazianzen, whom he greatly revered, he settled in 382 at Rome, where he acted as ecclesiastical secretary to Damasus, and assisted him in his studies.

This position, with his talents, his learning, and the reputation of religious experience which he had brought from the east, gave him the means of powerfully forwarding the cause of monasticism and celibacy. He soon gained an immense influence among the Roman ladies of rank, among whom Marcella, Asella, Paula, and Fabiola were conspicuous. He directed their spiritual life; he read and explained the Scriptures to them, while their eager questions often went beyond his power of answering; he endeavoured to draw all women into a resolution to preserve their virginity or their widowhood, and to engage in a course of asceticism. When remarks were made on his confining his instructions to the weaker sex, he answered that if men would ask him about Scripture he would not occupy himself with women. When charged with disparaging marriage, he answered that he praised it, inasmuch as marriage gave birth to virgins. The religion which Jerome taught these female pupils was not without its temptations to pride, from which it may be doubted whether his warnings were sufficient to preserve them. They were charged to seclude themselves from all other persons; the virgin Eustochium was exhorted to avoid all intercourse with married women as corrupting. The pursuits of piety and of unusual learning animated them to despise the ordinary amusements of the world; and they were taught to regard such amusements, without any distinction, as sins of the most deadly kind. On those who followed his directions Jerome lavished hyperbolical praises. He tells them that a mother who gives up her daughter to celibacy becomes the “mother-in-law of God”—an expression which not unnaturally gave occasion for charges of profanity. One of his epistles is an elaborate panegyric on Asella, written to Marcella, whom, with an amusing show of gravity, he begs not to communicate it to her friend who was the subject of it. His eulogium on Paula after her death begins thus—“If all the members of my body were turned into tongues, and all my joints were to utter human voices, I should be unable to say anything worthy of the holy and venerable Paula's virtues”. Eustochium he styles “the precious pearl”—“the precious jewel of virginity and of the church”. She, he says, “in gathering the flowers of virginity”, answers to the good ground in the parable which yielded an hundredfold, while her sister Paulina, who had died in wedlock, was as that which brought forth thirty-fold, and their mother, the widowed Paula, as that which brought forth sixty-fold. With no less zeal he extols Demetrias, a member of the great Anician family, who with her mother Juliana had been driven by the calamities of Rome to seek a refuge in Africa. On the eve of the day appointed for her marriage, this “foremost maiden of the Roman world for nobility and wealth” declared her resolution to embrace a life of celibacy. Augustine, Jerome, and other eminent teachers wrote to her on the occasion; among them Pelagius, whose peculiar tenets were then beginning to attract attention, addressed to her, at her mother’s request, an elaborate epistle, in which his errors were so strongly expressed that Augustine and Alypius thought it necessary to counteract the effect of it by writing jointly to Juliana. “What an exultation was there throughout the whole family!” exclaims Jerome. “As if from a fruitful root, a multitude of virgins sprang up at once, and a crowd of dependants and servants followed the example of their pattern and mistress. Through every house ran a fervour of professing virginity. Nay, I say too little—all the churches throughout Africa danced, as it were, for joy. The fame of the act penetrated not only to cities, towns, and villages, but even to the very tents of the barbarians. All the islands between Africa and Italy were filled with the rumour; and the rejoicings, unchecked in their progress, ran further and further”. He goes on to say that Rome had put off her mourning garments—regarding the “perfect conversion” of her child as a token of divine favour towards herself—a compensation for the calamities which she had lately endured; that the shores of the Mediterranean and the regions of the east resounded with celebrations of Demetrias. “Even now”, he tells her, in words which admit of more than one application, “you have received, O virgin, more than you have offered. Whereas only one province had known you as the bride of man, the whole world has heard of you as the virgin of Christ”. The constant dwelling on the subject of virginity in writing to such correspondents—the strange, and some­times grossly indecent, comparisons with earthly love by which Jerome illustrates their mystical union with the heavenly bridegroom—are singularly at variance with modern ideas of delicacy. Nor, indeed, is it easy to understand why the choice of an unmarried life—which among ourselves is an everyday effect of mere economical prudence—should be extravagantly magnified as the loftiest reach of heroic sanctity.

Of the Roman ladies who fell under the influence of Jerome, Paula and her daughter Eustochium are the most intimately connected with his history. Paula was born in 347. Her father was said to be descended from Agamemnon; her mother from the Scipios and the Gracchi. Her husband, Toxotius, who traced his line-age through the Julian family to Aeneas, died in 380, leaving her with a young son of his own name, and with four daughters—Blaesilla, Paulina, Eustochium, and Rufina. Paula had already exchanged the luxury and delicacy of her former life for a course of strict religion before she became acquainted with Jerome. Eustochium, who had been trained under the care of the noble and pious widow Marcella, was the first Roman maiden of high birth who dedicated her virginity to God. At the desire of her uncle Hymetius, his wife, Praetextata, once more attired her after the fashion of this world, in the hope that she might be persuaded to abandon her resolution; but Jerome relates that in the same night the matron was visited in her sleep by an angel of terrible countenance and voice, who told her that since she had preferred her husband's command to Christ's, the sacrilegious hands which had touched the virgin's head should wither; that within five months she would be carried off to hell; and unless she repented forthwith, her husband and sons should be taken from her in one day. These threatenings (he says) were all fulfilled; and he does not fail to draw a moral for others from the fate of Praetextata.

Blaesilla, the eldest daughter of Paula, became a widow within seven months after her marriage. On her recovery from a dangerous illness, she devoted herself, by what is styled "”a sort of second baptism”, to prayer and mortification. Her tears flowed, not for the loss of her husband, but for the irreparable forfeiture of the virgin's crown. She learnt Hebrew with wonderful rapidity, and contended with her mother which of them should commit to memory and should chant the greater number of psalms in the original. After three months of this life Blaesilla died, her end having apparently been hastened by her austerities. At her funeral, which was conducted with pomp suitable to her rank, Paula was greatly agitated, and she was carried home as if dead. The crowd of spectators burst forth into loud cries, “See how she weeps for her child, after having killed her with fasting!” and they were clamorous for the death or banishment of the monks, by whose arts they declared that both mother and daughter had been bewitched. Jerome, who was especially aimed at, wrote to reprove Paula for having, by her exhibition of grief, given this occasion to the enemy; the devil (he said) having missed her daughter’s soul, was now attempting to catch her own.

In addition to the popular excitement, Jerome had provoked the dislike of many Roman nobles, whose female relatives had been under his guidance. He had also made many enemies among the professed virgins by censuring their inconsistencies in dress and manners, and was deeply engaged in quarrels with the clergy, whom he taxed with ignorance, luxury, rapacity, and selfishness, while they retorted by complaints of his intolerable arrogance. Even his ardent admirer Marcella was unable to approve the scorn and the asperity with which he treated his opponents; and the satirical letters which he wrote against his brethren were eagerly circulated among the heathen as tending to the disparagement of Christianity altogether.

By the death of his patron Damasus, which took place in 384, within a month after that of Blaesilla, he lost his official employment. He tells us that, in the earlier days of his residence at Rome, he had been in the highest estimation, and had even been regarded as worthy to succeed to the bishopric; but by this time the general opinion had changed. He had made himself unpopular; he was accused of magic, and of improper familiarity with Paula. “What?” he indignantly asks, “was I ever charged with following after silken dresses, glittering jewels, painted faces, or the desire of gold? Was there no other among the Roman matrons who could subdue my mind but one who is always weeping and fasting, squalid in filthy rags, almost blinded by her tears?—one who spends whole nights in supplications to God for mercy; whose songs are the Psalms, whose speech is the Gospel, whose pleasure is continence, whose life is a fast?”. That his own intractable character had been in any degree to blame for the troubles which had arisen, was an idea which Jerome could neither conceive nor entertain; in 385, after a residence of somewhat less than three years, he left Rome in disgust for the east.

Paula soon after followed, with Eustochium. Jerome draws an elaborate picture of her kindred, her marriageable daughter Rufina, and the young Toxotius, accompanying her to the place of embarkation, and imploring that she would not abandon them. Perhaps indignation may mingle with our other feelings as we read his eulogies on the mistaken heroism which led her, in the fancied pursuit of a higher religious life, to cast aside the duties which God and nature had laid upon her.

Jerome and Paula met again at Antioch, and spent some time in travelling, together or apart. Paula visited, with the greatest devotion, all the holy sites; while Jerome employed himself in endeavouring, by the help of local traditions, to bring the topography of Palestine to bear on the illustration of Scripture. From the Holy Land they passed into Egypt, where they sojourned among the Nitrian monks, and Jerome attended the lectures of Didymus, the last eminent master of the catechetical school of Alexandria, who, although blind from early childhood, was among the foremost men of his age, not only for genius, but for theological and secular learning. In 387 the matron and her spiritual guide took up their abode at Bethlehem, then a place of great resort, both for pilgrims from all parts of the Christian world, and for settlers who wished to enjoy such advantages as the neighbourhood of scenes famous in sacred history might be expected to yield for the religious life. Jerome describes in lofty terms the love, the harmony, and the mutual forbearance which reigned among the sojourners in the Redeemer's birthplace; but his praises were perhaps chiefly founded on the improvement in his own position, as compared with that of his latter days at Rome; and it is certain that if Bethlehem was at peace when he arrived there, his temper soon introduced the elements of discord.

Paula became an object of interest to pilgrims, whose veneration more than compensated for the secular advantages which she had resigned. For a time Jerome lived in a small cell. He was supported by Paula, but would accept only the coarsest clothing, with a diet of bread, water, and pulse. By selling the remainder of his patrimony, through the agency of his brother Paulinian, whom he sent into the west for the purpose, he was able to build a monastery, in which it is supposed that he took up his abode, and an hospital, which was open to all strangers except heretics, “lest”, he said, “Joseph and Mary, if they were to come again to Bethlehem, should again find no room; for our purpose is to wash the feet of those who come to us—not to discuss their merits”. His chief literary occupation was the translation of the Scriptures. While at Rome he had, at the desire of Damasus, corrected the Latin version of the Gospels by the Greek; he now, in like manner, corrected the Latin of the Old Testament according to the text of the Septuagint exhibited in Origen’s Hexapla, which he procured from the library of Caesarea; but he afterwards entered on a greater undertaking, of vast importance for the ages which were to follow—a direct translation from the Hebrew. These labours excited great odium against him on the part of persons by whom the reverence which regards God’s word as sacred was ignorantly extended to the defects of the versions which they had been accustomed to use. His correction of the Gospels had contributed to swell his unpopularity at Rome; to attempt any improvements on the Septuagint, which was supposed to be itself inspired, was regarded as a daring impiety. Rufinus, in the bitterness of controversy, denounced Jerome for bringing the knowledge which he had bought from “a Barabbas of the synagogue” to disparage the books which the apostles had delivered to the church; even Augustine wrote to dissuade him from prosecuting his task, on the ground that, after the labours of so many translators, there was probably nothing considerable to be done.

By his correspondence Jerome acted as a spiritual director to many religious persons at Rome and elsewhere, while at home he superintended the exercises and employments of Paula and Eustochium. The hours of the pious widow and her daughter were spent in study, devotion, and works of charity : such was their eagerness to penetrate into the meaning of Scripture, that Jerome often found himself perplexed by their pertinacious questionings. Paula daily bewailed the vanities of her youth with a profusion of tears; even in illness she refused to depart from her custom of lying on the bare floor in a hair shirt; nor would she taste wine, although the advice of her physician was supported by the spiritual authority of Jerome and of Epiphanius, bishop of Constantia in Cyprus. She built three monasteries for women, and one for men. Her property had been greatly reduced by her largesses for religious and charitable purposes before leaving Rome and in the course of her travels; she now gave away the remainder, and, when Jerome remonstrated, she answered that it was her wish to die a beggar, without leaving anything for her daughter, and to be indebted to the charity of others for a shroud. Eustochium is celebrated as a model of filial obedience; she never, it is said, slept away from her mother, never ate except in her company, never took a step without her: she never had any money of her own during her mother’s lifetime, and at Paula’s death found herself charged with the maintenance of a multitude of male and female recluses, and burdened with debts which the devout widow had contracted at high interest, in order to obtain the means for her extravagant alms-deeds.

After a residence of nearly twenty years at Bethlehem, Paula died in 404, and was buried in the church of the Nativity. The funeral rites lasted a week. The bier was borne by bishops, while others of that order carried lamps; and the attendance of clergy, monks, and laity was immense. The inscription on the grave, composed by Jerome, set forth the illustrious descent and connections of Paula, with her sacrifice of all for Christ. Eustochium survived her until 419, and in the following year Jerome himself died, having attained the age of eighty-nine.

The founders of monasticism intended that their disciples should be patterns of the highest Christian life, rather than directly teachers. They were therefore originally laymen, but by the repute of sanctity they soon gained an influence which raised them into a rivalry with the clergy. Although for the most part little qualified by education to judge of theological questions, they were consulted on the highest and the most difficult Some of them were resorted to as oracles; even the emperor Theodosius, before resolving on war, thought it well to assure himself by the opinion of John, a celebrated solitary of the Thebaid. By many of the monks ecclesiastical office was regarded as inconsistent with the higher spiritual life. Thus St. Martin of Tours considered that his power of miracles was weakened from the time when he left his monastery for the episcopate. Pachomius charged his brotherhood to shun ordination as a snare and it is recorded as a saying current in Egypt, that “a monk ought to avoid bishops and women; for neither will allow him to rest quietly in his cell, or to devote himself to the contemplation of heavenly things”. Ammonius, one of the monks who had accompanied Athanasius to Rome, on being chosen for a bishopric, cut off one of his ears, supposing that, as under the Jewish law, the mutilation would disqualify him; and, on being told that such was not the case, he threatened to cut out his tongue. When, however, an abbot named Dracontius declined a bishopric as being a hindrance to spiritual improvement, Athanasius strongly combated his opinion. “Even when a bishop”, he writes, “you may hunger and thirst, and fast as often as Paul. . . . We know of bishops who fast, and of monks who eat; of bishops who abstain from wine, and of monks who drink; of bishops who do miracles, and of monks who do none; of many bishops who have never married, and of monks who have had children”. But, although the original idea of monachism discouraged the reception of ecclesiastical orders, many monks regarded ordination as an advancement, and for that reason sought after it. St. Augustine intimates that these were not always the persons who were most likely to do credit to the clerical office; but even where there was no previous objection on the ground of character, the effect of transferring monks to the ranks of clergy was often unsatisfactory. St. Chrysostom, a warm advocate of monasticism, mentions that he had known some who made continual progress as monks, but deteriorated when brought into active life as ecclesiastics; and perhaps this change may be explained by supposing that the monastic training had failed to prepare them for functions which require a knowledge of men, and a sympathy with human feelings.

There is much that is beautiful and attractive in the idea of monasticism—a life dedicated to prayer and contemplation, varied by labours for the good of mankind; a bond of brotherhood, linking together as equals all who should enter into the society, from the man who had forsaken rank and wealth and power—perhaps even sovereignty—to the emancipated slave; renunciation of individual possessions for a community of all things, in imitation (as was supposed) of the first Christians after the day of Pentecost. But while we acknowledge this, and believe that in very many cases the benefits of the monastic institution were largely realized—while we see in the establishment of this system a providential preparation for the coming ages of darkness, in which it was to be of inestimable service to the church, to literature, and to civilization—we must notice even thus early some of the evils which were mixed with it Foremost among these may be placed the danger of the distinction between an ordinary and a more exalted Christian life. This idea St. Chrysostom strongly and frequently opposed. “All men”, he says, “ought to rise to the same height, and that which ruins the whole world is that we imagine a greater strictness to be necessary for the monk alone, but that others may lead careless lives. Indeed it is not so, it is not so; but we are all required to exercise the same discipline; and this I very strongly assert,—or rather, not I, but He who will be our judge. The Saviour's precepts that we should take his yoke upon us, that we should enter in at the strait gate, that we should hate the life of this world, and all such like, are not addressed to monks only, but to all. But the distinction was too commonly adopted—not only to the relaxation of religion and morals among the multitude, who learnt to devolve the higher duties on the monks, and were led into a general disregard of the divine laws by finding themselves exempt from the operation of certain rules which claimed a divine authority, such as the monastic precepts on the subject of marriage; but to the danger of those who embraced a course which was thus marked out as far above that required of mankind in general”.

The institution was not of Christian origin. It was common to eastern religions; the scriptural patterns of it were all drawn from the days of the Old Testament— Elijah, the Rechabites, St. John the Baptist whereas a warrant for it under the gospel was only to be found by violently distorting the meaning of some passages, or by magnifying them beyond their due proportion. The monk was to avoid those trials of life for the bearing of which grace is promised, and was to cast himself on other trials, for which he might possibly be unfit. He was placed in hostility, not only to the corruption and evil of the world, but to that which is good in it. He was to renounce its charities and its discipline; he was to become a stranger to his natural affections. Antony himself believed it to be a duty to overcome his love for his sister, whom, after their early parting, he never saw again until she had become an aged abbess; and we have seen how harshly Pachomius disowned the ties of kindred. Pior, a disciple of Antony, on leaving his father’s house, vowed that he would never again look on any of his relations. After he had spent fifty years in the desert, his sister discovered that he was still alive; she was too infirm to seek him out, but her earnest entreaties set in motion the authority of his superiors, and Pior was ordered to visit her. Having arrived in front of her dwelling, he sent her notice of his presence. As the door opened, he closed his eyes, and held them obstinately closed throughout the meeting; and, having allowed his sister to see him in this fashion, he refused to enter her house, and hurried back to the desert. Another monastic hero, on receiving a large packet of letters from his home, with which he had held no communication for fifteen years, burnt it without opening it, lest the contents should distract his mind by suggesting remembrances of the writers. A still more extraordinary example of the manner in which the monks were expected to deaden their natural feelings is said to have been given by one Mucius. On his desiring admission into a monastery, with his son, a boy eight years old, they were compelled, by way of trial, to remain long without the gate. The constancy with which this was borne prevailed on the monks to admit them, although children were usually excluded; but their probation was not yet ended. They were separated from each other, the child was ill-treated in every way, was dressed in rags, kept in a disgustingly filthy state, and often beaten without any cause. Mucius, however, made no remonstrance; and at length, on being told to throw his son into the river, he obeyed this command also. The boy was saved, and it was revealed to the abbot of the house that his new inmate was a second Abraham.

The overstrained and misdirected idea of obedience which appears so remarkably in the case of Mucius, runs through the whole history of early monachism. The applicants for admission into a monastic society were required to approve themselves by submitting to insults, contempt, harsh usage, and degrading employments; the faith and patience of the monks were tried by the imposition of wearisome and preposterous labours. Thus it is related that John, the same whose responses afterwards directed the policy of the great Theodosius, was commanded by his abbot to remove a huge rock, and struggled at the manifestly hopeless task until he was worn out by the violence of his exertions. At another time he was ordered to water a dry stick twice a day; and for a year he faithfully persisted in the work, toiling, whether sick or well, through all the inclemencies of the seasons, to fetch the water twice every day from a distance of two miles. On being asked at length by his superior whether the plant had struck root, the monk completed his obedience by modestly answering that he did not know; whereupon the abbot, pulling up the stick, released him from his task. In such narratives it seems to be expected that we should admire not only the endurance of the submissive monk, but the execrable tyranny of the task­master.

The zeal with which St. Ambrose taught that virginity ought to be embraced in defiance of the will of parents has already been mentioned. St. Jerome is yet more extravagant. “Although”, he writes, in exhorting Heliodorus to become a hermit, “your little nephew should hang about your neck; although your mother, with hair dishevelled and garments rent, should show you the breasts at which she nourished you; although your father should lie on the threshold;—trample on your father, and set out! Fly with dry eyes to the banner of the cross! The only kind of piety is to be cruel in this matter”.

An over-valuation of celibacy already called down the censure of some councils. That of Gangra anathematizes those who condemn marriage as if it were inconsistent with salvation; it forbids virgins to exalt themselves above the married, and orders that women should not forsake their husbands as if matrimony were unholy. The whole tone of its canons is directed against the error of making a higher religion the pretext for the neglect of natural and ordinary duties. Other councils forbade the reception of married persons into monasteries without the consent of their partners, and the profession of celibacy by women before the age of mature understanding. The council of Saragossa (A.D. 381) fixes this at forty; the third council of Carthage (A.D. 397), at twenty-five; St. Basil, without naming any particular age, requires that the profession shall be the effect of a settled and independent resolution.

Some monks lived entirely for contemplation and devotion, depending on others for food—as Paul, called the Simple, a monk of Scetis, who said three hundred prayers a-day, keeping an account of them by pebbles. But in general, the need of some additional occupation was felt by the fathers of monasticism. It was a saying that “a monk employed is beset by one devil, but an idle monk by a whole legion”. The industrial occupations prescribed for the monks, however, were not in general such as very thoroughly to occupy them. There was, after all, much vacant time, and, although some of them cultivated learning, there was in most cases a want of mental resources for the profitable use of leisure. Antony, indeed, when a philosopher asked him how he could live without books, was able to reply that for him the whole creation was a book, always at hand, in which he could read God's word whensoever he pleased. But this capacity for the contemplative life was not universal Among the multitude who embraced the monastic profession—some from a mere spirit of imitation; others from disappointment in love or in ambition, from excited feelings of remorse, or in consequence of a sudden shock; some from a wish to distinguish themselves, and to gain the reputation of holiness; some from a disinclination to earn their support by any active callings The means which were taken to avoid temptation rather served to excite it, by placing always before the mind the duty of combating certain forms in which it might be expected to appear. Thoughts of blasphemy and visions of impurity are continually mentioned in the histories of monks. Many were driven into positive insanity by solitude and excessive abstinence, working on enthusiastic temperaments; many to despair, with thoughts of suicide, which were sometimes carried into act. The biographies are full of fights with devils, of visions and miracles—especially cures of demoniacs, raising of the dead and compelling them to speak. The brute creatures play a large part in the miraculous tales. Thus it is said that the younger Macarius was visited by a lioness, who laid her blind cubs at his feet, that they might receive their sight. The saint, after praying, performed the work; and the mother expressed her gratitude by a present of sheep­skins. It would be difficult to determine in how far these stories are true; how far the phantasies of excited imagination may have been mistaken for realities; how far ordinary things have been exaggerated into the miraculous; or how far the narratives are mere falsehoods, invented for the glory of the heroes and of the institution.

With many the outward imitation of the founders of monachism was all in all, while unhappily the spirit which preserved such men as Antony from the evils of their system was wanting. Austerities' frightful to think of were too often combined with a want of true Christian faith and purity of heart. Many monks fancied themselves above needing the ordinances of grace; many relapsed from an overstrained asceticism into self-indulgent habits. Spiritual pride and fanaticism abounded. And often it was found that the love of earthly things, which was supposed to have been overcome by embracing the monastic state, revived in new and subtle forms; as we are told that many who had renounced wealth and splendour became chary of a knife, a style, a needle, or a pen; that they would not let any one even touch their books, and for such trifles were ready to break out into violent anger.

After a time, monks, forgetting the original object of their institution, began to flock into towns, for the sake of the gifts which were to be expected, and of the other advantages which such places offered. This was forbidden in 390 by a law of Theodosius, issued, it is said, at the instigation of judges, who found the visitors apt to interfere with the course of justice. Two years later the law was relaxed, but only to the extent of allowing the monks to repair to, cities for the redress of judicial wrongs. The credulity and liberality of the inhabitants were practised on by hypocritical monks, who affected strange dress and savage manners,—loading themselves with heavy chains, exhibiting pretended relics, and telling outrageous fictions of adventures which they professed to have had with evil spirits,—while their private life was spent in luxury and profligacy.

Few of the monks were able even to read; and in them the ignorance which would have been despised in the clergy was admired as a token of sanctity. In consequence of their ignorance they were liable to be swayed by any one who might get possession of their minds. Their partisanship was violent; they denounced any deviation from their own narrow views as utterly anti-Christian; and, although in the Arian and Apollinarian controversies they did good service, it was often in a rude and improper manner. They interfered tumultuously in the elections of bishops. Crowds of them went about in the east, destroying temples; and as such were the specimens of the monastic class which came into contact with the pagans, we cannot wonder that their illiteracy and their lawless fury excited in these strong feelings of disgust and detestation. Libanius, whose description of them has been already quoted in part, is vehement against these “drones” who live in luxury at other men’s cost; and he charges them with getting a large portion of the soil into their possession under false pretences of religion. The emperor Julian can find nothing worse to say against the pretenders to the character of cynics than that they are like the class of “renunciants” among the “Galileans”, who, by giving up such trifles as they possess, acquire wealth, state, and reverence. In like manner Eunapius speaks of the monks as leading a “swinish life”; he says that any one who chooses to dress in black and to disregard public decency may acquire a tyrannic power. If a comparison with the circumcellions, which St. Augustine is very eager to rebut, was undeserved by the monks of northern Africa, it would have done but little injustice to those of some other regions.

The monastic spirit soon began to exhibit itself in extravagant forms. Thus the doscoi, or grazers, whose manner of life originated in Mesopotamia, but was afterwards imitated in Palestine, dwelt in mountains or deserts, without any roof to shelter them—exposed, almost entirely naked, to the heat and to the cold, and browsing on grass and herbs until, both in body and in mind, they lost the likeness of humanity. Others of these Christian fakirs, after having professedly attained a perfection superior to all human feelings, used to feign madness, and to astonish the inhabitants of cities by ostentatious displays of ridiculous and unseemly behaviour, in order (as it was interpreted) to show their contempt for worldly glory. And in the beginning of the fifth century appeared the fanaticism of the stylites, or pillar-saints.

The first of these, Simeon, a native of the border-land between Syria and Cilicia, was employed in boyhood to tend his father's sheep; but, having been induced by some words which he heard in church to resolve on embracing a religious life, he entered a strict monastery at the age of thirteen, and remained there nine years. His abstinences and other mortifications excited the wonder and admiration of the monks. One day, on being sent to draw water, he took the rough palm-rope of the convent well, bound it tightly round him, and pretended that he had been unable to find it. At the end of a fortnight, the secret was betrayed by the drops of blood which the rope forced out from his flesh; and, on examination, it was found to have eaten into his body so deeply that it could hardly be seen. Simeon bore without a groan the torture of having it extracted, but would not allow any remedies to be applied to his wounds; and the abbot thereupon begged that he would leave the monastery, lest his severities should raise a spirit of emulation which might be dangerous to the weaker brethren. Simeon then withdrew to a place about forty miles from Antioch, where he lived ten years in a sort of narrow pen; after which he built a pillar, and took his position on the top of it, which was only about a yard in diameter. He removed successively from one pillar to another, always increasing the height, which in the last of them was forty cubits; and in this way he spent thirty-seven years. His life is compared to that of angels—offering up prayers for men from his elevated station, and bringing down graces on them. His neck was loaded with an iron chain. In praying, he bent his body so that his forehead almost touched his feet; a spectator once counted twelve hundred and forty-four repetitions of this movement, and then lost his reckoning. The stylite took only one scanty meal a-week, and fasted throughout the season of Lent. He uttered prophecies, and wrought an abundance of miracles.

Some time after he had adopted his peculiar manner of life, a neighbouring society of monks sent to ask why he was not content with such fashions of holiness as had sufficed for the saints of earlier days. The messenger was charged to bid him leave his pillar, and, in case of a refusal, to pull him down by force. But Simeon, on hearing the order, put forth one of his feet, as if to descend; whereupon the messenger, as he had been instructed, acknowledged this obedience as a proof that the stylite’s mode of life was approved by God, and desired him to continue in it.

Simeon’s fame became immense. Pilgrims from distant lands—from Persia and Ethiopia, from Spain, Gaul, and even from Britain—flocked to see him; and during his own lifetime little figures of him were set up in the workshops of Rome, as charms against evil. The king of Persia sent ambassadors to him; he corresponded with bishops and emperors, and influenced the policy both of church and state, while, by his life and his exhortations, he converted multitudes of Saracens and other nomads of the desert.

At length the devil appeared to Simeon in the form of an angel, and in the name of God invited him to ascend, like Elijah, in a fiery chariot, to the company of angels and saints who were represented as eager to welcome him. Simeon raised his right foot to enter the chariot, but at the same time made the sign of the cross, on which the tempter vanished. In punishment of the stylite’s having so far given way to presumption, the devil afflicted him with an ulcer in his thigh; and Simeon, by way of penance, resolved that the foot which he had put forth should never again touch his pillar, but during the remaining year of his life supported himself on one leg. Simeon died in 460, at the age of seventy-two; and we are told that around the spot which had long been his abode, all nature mourned his departure. The birds wheeled about his pillar, uttering doleful cries; men and beasts filled the air with their groans to a distance of many miles; while the mountains, the forests, and the plains were enveloped in a dense and sympathetic gloom. An angel with a countenance like lightning, and in raiment white as snow, appeared discoursing with seven elders, in awful tones, of which the words could not be distinguished; and as the precious body was carried to Antioch, to serve the city as a defence, instead of the walls which had been lately overthrown by an earthquake, a multitude of miracles marked its way.

On Simeon’s death, a disciple named Sergius, in obedience to his desire, carried his cowl to the emperor Leo; but, as the emperor did not appear to be sufficiently impressed by the announcement of the legacy, Sergius bestowed it on Daniel, a monk of Mesopotamian birth, whose sanctity had already been attested by many miracles. Daniel had formerly visited Simeon; he was now urged by visions to imitate his manner of life, and set up a pillar in a spot which had been indicated by a dove, about four miles north of Constantinople. The owner of the soil, whose leave had not been asked, complained of this invasion to Leo and to the patriarch Gennadius; and Gennadius, envious of Daniel’s holiness, or suspecting him of vanity, was about to dislodge him, when miracles were wrought in vindication of the stylite’s motives. Daniel was therefore allowed to retain his position, and after some time Gennadius, whose suspicions were not yet extinct, was directed by a vision to ordain him to the priesthood. The stylite professed himself unworthy, and would not allow the patriarch to approach him; but Gennadius, standing at the foot of the pillar, went through the form of ordination. Daniel then ordered that a ladder should be brought; the patriarch mounted to the top of the column, administered the Eucharist to the newly-ordained priest, and received it at his hands.

For thirty-three years Daniel continued to occupy his pillar, until he died at the age of eighty. By continually standing, his feet were covered with sores and ulcers; and it was in vain that his disciples endeavoured to discover by what nourishment he supported life. The high winds of Thrace sometimes stripped him of his scanty clothing, and almost blew him from his place, and sometimes he was covered for days with snow and ice, until Leo forcibly enclosed the top of his pillar with a shed. Like Simeon, he was supposed to possess the gifts of prophecy and miracles; he was regarded as an oracle of heaven, and was visited with reverence by kings and emperors. It is said that, through all the temptations to pride which he so laboriously courted, Daniel was able to preserve his humility; and, although general assertions of this kind carry little weight, perhaps a better evidence may be found in the statement that he discouraged all who approached him with complaints against their bishops.

Although the stylite manner of life was regarded by some teachers as vainglorious and unprofitable, Simeon found many imitators in Syria and in Greece, where stylites are mentioned as late as the twelfth century. But, except in a very few cases, this fashion does not appear to have been adopted in other countries. When one Wulfilaich, towards the end of the sixth century, attempted to practise it in the district of Treves, the neighbouring bishops ordered his pillar to be demolished.

Rites and Usages.

The more general adoption of Christianity was followed by an increase of splendour in all that concerned the worship of God. Churches were built and adorned with greater cost; the officiating clergy were attired in gorgeous vestures; the music became more elaborate, and many new ceremonies were introduced. But, praiseworthy as was the design of making the outward service as worthy of its object as the means of the worshippers would allow, the change was not unaccompanied by serious evils, which even already began to produce their effects. St. Jerome complains of the magnificence which was lavished on churches—their marble walls and pillars, their gilded ceilings, their jewelled altars—which he contrasts with the neglect of all care in the choice of fit persons for the ministry; and he scornfully reprobates the arguments which would defend the richness of furniture and decoration in Christian churches by analogies derived from the Jewish system. Multitudes were drawn into the church by the conversion of the emperor, without any sufficient understanding of their new profession—with minds still possessed by heathen notions and corrupted by the general depravation of heathen morality. The governors of the church attempted to recommend the gospel to such converts by ceremonies which might rival those of their old religion, and so, it was hoped, might attract them to the true and saving essentials with which the Christian ceremonies were connected. But unhappily Christianity itself lost in the process—not only being discredited by unworthy professors, but becoming affected in its doctrines and practices by heathenism. Pagan usages were adopted,—the burning of lamps or candles by day (which, even so lately as the time of Lactantius, had been a subject of ridicule for the Christian controversialists), incense, lustrations, and the like; and there was indeed too much foundation for the reproach with which the Manichean Faustus assailed the church:— “The sacrifices of the heathen ye have turned into feasts of charity; their idols into martyrs, whom ye honour with the like religious offices unto theirs; the ghosts of the dead ye appease with wine and delicates; the festival days of the nations ye celebrate together with them [as the kalends and the solstices]; and of their kind of life ye have verily changed nothing”. A merely external performance of duties, as it was all that heathenism required, came to be regarded by many as sufficient in Christianity also, and bounty to the church was supposed to cover the guilt of sins. St. Augustine says that an ordinary Christian who professed any seriousness in spiritual things had as much to bear from the mockery of his brethren as a convert to Christianity endured from the mockery of the heathen. And we have already had occasion to notice the unfavourable effect which the monastic system produced on the religion of men engaged in secular life.

Many persons were found at church for the great Christian ceremonies, and at the theatres, or even at the temples, for the heathen spectacles. The ritual of the church was viewed as a theatrical exhibition. The sermons were listened to as the displays of rhetoricians; and eloquent preachers were cheered with clapping of hands, stamping of feet, waving of handkerchiefs, cries of “Orthodox!” “Thirteenth apostle!” and other like demonstrations, which such teachers as Chrysostom and Augustine often tried to restrain, in order that they might persuade their flocks to a more profitable manner of hearing. Some went to church for the sermon only, alleging that they could pray at home. And when the more attractive parts of the service were over, the great mass of the people departed, without remaining for the administration of the Eucharist, which in the first ages had usually been received by the whole congregation, but was now (in the Greek church, at least) received by most persons at Easter only The doctrinal controversies also, which occupy so large a space in the history of the century, acted unfavourably on its religious tone, by bringing the highest mysteries of the faith into idle discussion, and by throwing into the background the necessity of a practically religious life.

Usages which had grown up insensibly were now fixed by express regulations; and by this and the other means which have been mentioned, the ritual system was so overlaid with rules and ceremonies as to give occasion tor St. Augustine's well-known complaint, “that they were grown to such a number that the state of Christian people was in worse case concerning that matter than were the Jews”. Things which would have been good either as expressions of devotion or as means of training for it, became, through their multiplication and through the importance which was attached to them, too likely to be regarded as independent ends.

The heathen temples were in some cases turned into churches; but, intended as they were for a ritual which was chiefly carried on in the open courts, and of which addresses to the people formed no part, their structure was ill suited for Christian worship. The type of the Christian churches was taken from buildings of another kind,—the basilicae; and the name itself was adopted into ecclesiastical use, as signifying the dwelling-places of the Almighty King. These buildings were oblong, and were usually separated by two ranges of pillars into a middle part or nave, and two aisles of inferior height. At the farther end was a portion styled in Greek bema, and in Latin tribuna, distinguished from the rest by the elevation of its floor, and terminating in a semicircular projection, called the absis or apse. The lower portion of the building was used as a sort of exchange; in the bema stood the tribunal of the judge, with an altar before it. These arrangements were easily accommodated to the purpose of worship, whether in basilicas which were given up to the church, or in new buildings erected on the same plan.

At Constantinople, from the foundation of the city, a new form of ecclesiastical architecture was employed—its chief characteristics being the cruciform plan, and the cupola which soared upwards from the intersection of the cross, as if in imitation of the canopy of heaven. This style in later times not only prevailed through the Greek church, including the countries of the Slavonic race, but was introduced by Justinian at Ravenna, and through the influence of the Ravennese examples affected other parts of western Europe.

Contrary to the practice which afterwards became general among the Teutonic nations, the early churches usually fronted the east. Paulinus of Nola mentions this arrangement, and tells us that he himself, in building his church to the honour of St. Felix, deviated from it by turning the front towards the patron’s tomb.

The part of a church nearest to the entrance was the narthex, or vestibule, occupied by penitents and catechumens, and open to all comers. This was separated by the “beautiful gates” from the nave, in which the “faithful” were placed; at the upper end of the nave, in a place corresponding to that which in the secular basilicas was appropriated to the bar, was the choir, slightly raised above the level of the nave, and separated by a railing from the innermost portion of the church, the bema, or sanctuary. From the time of Constantine the wooden altars of the primitive church began to be superseded by stone. The introduction of this material is ascribed to Sylvester of Rome, although without any certain authority, and the change appears to have been completely established before the times of Gregory Nyssen and Chrysostom. Women were seated apart from the men—sometimes in enclosed galleries, an arrangement which was especially followed in eastern countries. The church was usually surrounded by a court, containing the lodgings of the clergy and other buildings, among which, in cathedrals and other greater churches, was the baptistery. Churches were now dedicated with great solemnity, and the anniversary of the consecration was celebrated.

The arts of painting and sculpture began to be taken into the service of the gospel. This change, however, did not originate with the clergy. Eusebius of Caesarea, in the early part of the century, expressed himself strongly against the attempt to represent the holy personages of Scripture—saying that the glory of the Saviour cannot be represented, and that the true image of the saints is a saintly life. Epiphanius, bishop of Constantia in Cyprus (whose name will again come before us), while travelling in the Holy Land in 394, tore a curtain, which he found hanging before the sanctuary of a church, with a figure either of the Saviour or of a saint painted on it—declaring such representations to be contrary to Scripture. But the account of the incident shows that new views as to their lawfulness had already obtained a footing among Christians. It was usual to depict subjects from the Old Testament as figurative of their evangelical antitypes: thus the water from the rock was employed to signify baptism; Moses bringing the manna from heaven represented the Eucharist; and the sacrifice of Isaac typified the crucifixion. In addition to these symbolical pictures, the walls of many churches were covered with martyrdoms and scriptural scenes, and wealthy persons had their garments embroidered with subjects of the same kinds. It was not, however, until the very end of the century that single figures were thus painted—a sort of pictures the most likely to attract the honour which was soon bestowed on them. St. Augustine reluctantly confesses that in his time many were “adorers of pictures”. Statues were not yet erected; nor was the Saviour himself represented, otherwise than in symbolical forms, until the next century; although the teachers of the church, abandoning the earlier view as to the uncomeliness of his personal appearance, took up one of an opposite kind, and thus prepared the way for the introduction of that type on which the artists of later ages have expressed their ideal of serene majesty and tenderness.

The cross was adorned with gems and gold, and was perhaps set upon the altars of churches. Julian charged the Christians with worshipping it. But the crucifix, like all other representations of our Lord which are associated with sorrow and suffering, was not known until some centuries later.

BAPTISM.

During the fourth century much was done to fix those parts of the liturgy which until then had been fluctuating. The name of St. Basil in the east, and that of St. Ambrose in the west, are especially celebrated in relation to this work, although both have been connected with much that is of later date. The hymns of Ambrose became the models for such compositions in the western church, and, from the general designation of the style as Ambrosian, it came to pass that many pieces were wrongly ascribed to him, as if they had been the productions of his own pen.

The division of the service into the “mass of the catechumens” and the “mass of the faithful” was maintained, until, in the fifth century, its abolition naturally followed on the general profession of Christianity and the general practice of infant baptism. Now that the celebration of Christian worship was not attended with danger, the earlier portion of the service—including psalmody, reading of Scripture, prayers, and sermon—was open to Jews and heathens, as well as to catechumens and penitents.

At baptism some new ceremonies were introduced—as the use of lights and salt, and an unction with oil before baptism (significant of the receivers being “made kings and priests unto God”, in addition to that with chrism, which continued to be administered after the sacrament). The previous training was methodized by a division of the catechumens into three classes, hearers, kneelers, and competents, the last being candidates who were fully prepared. The vigils of Easter and Pentecost were, as before, the most usual times for baptism. In the east, the Epiphany became popular as a baptismal season, connected as it was with the Saviour’s baptism in the Jordan, and the administration at Whitsuntide was disused. The custom of baptizing on the Epiphany also made its way into Africa and other western countries; but when some Spanish bishops baptized at Christmas, Epiphany, and on the festivals of saints, Siricius, in his decretal epistle to Himerius (A.D. 385), noted it as a presumption, and ordered that baptism should not ordinarily be given except at Easter and Whitsuntide.

The practice of deferring baptism has been exemplified in many instances in the preceding chapters. The delay, however, did not arise from any opinion that the baptism of infants was unlawful (for in case of danger they were baptized, and the institution was regarded as apostolical), but from fear lest a greater guilt should be contracted by falling into sin after baptism. And the time to which the sacrament was postponed was not, as with modern sectaries, that of attaining to years of discretion; but the season of serious illness or other danger, or, in the case of clergymen and monks, that of entering on a new and strict manner of life. Eminent teachers of the church, a Gregory of Nazianzum and his namesake of Nyssa, endeavoured to counteract the custom by exposing the mistakes on which it rested. Gregory of Nyssa states that, when alarmed by earthquakes, pestilence, or other public calamities, such multitudes rushed to be baptized, that the clergy were oppressed by the labour of receiving them.

The customs of churches varied as to the frequency of celebrating the Eucharist. Where there was no daily consecration, it was usual to reserve the consecrated bread, which thus became liable to be used for superstitious purposes; as we are told that Satyrus, a brother of St. Ambrose, was saved in a shipwreck by tying a morsel of the holy bread to his neck; and that in another case the application of such bread, by way of a poultice, opened the eyes of a blind person. When the elements were consecrated, the people partook of both; to refuse the wine was noted as a token of Manichaean heresy.

The name of agape was now used in a sense different from that which it had originally borne—to designate festivals held by churches at the tombs of their martyrs, or by families at those of their relatives. These festivals took the place of the heathen Parentalia, and were celebrated with so much of unseemliness and excess that bishops and councils, during the latter part of the century, exerted themselves to suppress them. But so great a hold had such celebrations on the multitude, that the abolition of them was no easy matter, and could hardly be attempted without danger. Thus the third council of Carthage, in 397, does not venture to forbid them, except as far as possible and notices of them are found as having continued in some places until the following century.

The Lord’s day was observed with greater strictness than before, although the distinction between it and the Sabbath, as to origin, authority, and manner of observance, was still carefully maintained. Constantine, as we have seen, ordered that no legal proceedings and no military exercises should take place on it; yet he allowed agricultural labour to be carried on, lest the benefit of favourable weather should be lost. The council of Laodicea, while it condemned all Judaizing in the observance of the day, directed that labour should be avoided on it as much as possible. Theodosius in 379, and again in 386, enacted that no civil business should then be done, and abolished the spectacles in which the heathen had found their consolation when the day was set apart from other secular uses by Constantine.

The custom of observing the Sabbath in a similar manner to the Lord's day was now declining. The Laodicean canon, which has just been quoted, denounced a cessation from work on it as Judaical.

The quartodeciman practice as to the observance of Easter was condemned by the council of Nicaea, and was thenceforth regarded as a mark of heterodoxy. But as the council did not direct by what means the proper day should be determined, it was found that, although Easter was everywhere kept on a Sunday, the reckonings of different churches varied, sometimes to the extent of a month or more. The science of Alexandria gave the law to the eastern churches in general; and in the sixth century the Alexandrian calculation was adopted at Rome.

The tendency of the age to an increase of ceremonies affected the celebration of Easter. The week before the festival was observed with additional solemnity. On the Thursday the Eucharist was celebrated in the evening, in special remembrance of its original institution; on Easter-eve, ‘the great Sabbath’, cities were illuminated, and crowds of worshippers, carrying lights, symbolical of the baptismal “enlightening”, flocked to the churches, where they continued in vigil until the morning of the resurrection. The following week was a season of rejoicing; the newly-baptized wore their white robes until the Sunday of the octave.

The Epiphany now made its way from the eastern churches into the west, where it was kept chiefly in remembrance of our Lord's manifestation to the magi, but also with a reference to his first miracle and other manifestations. As the Donatists rejected the festival, we may infer that it must have been unknown in Africa until after the date of their separation from the church; the earliest express notice of its celebration in any western country is in 360, when Julian kept it at Vienne, shortly before avowing his apostasy. In like manner the observance of the Nativity passed from the west to the east. It was introduced at Antioch soon after 375, and was there kept on the 25th of December, although some churches combined it with the Epiphany. The idea that our Christmas-day was chosen from a wish to compensate for the heathen festivals of the season is refuted by the fact that the policy of the earlier Christians, from whom it had come down, met the festivities of the heathen by appointing not feasts, but fasts. Thus, in the west, a fast of three days at the beginning of the year was established in opposition to the Saturnalia.

The festivals of some of the most distinguished saints, such as St. Peter and St. Paul, St. John the Baptist and St. Stephen, from having had only a local celebration, became, in the fourth century, general throughout the church.

The practice of fasting, which had formerly been left in great measure to the discretion of individuals, was now settled by ecclesiastical laws. The Lenten fast, of thirty-six days, "a tithe of the year", became general both in the east and in the west, although with a difference as to its beginning, from the circumstance that in the east the Sabbath, as well as the Lord's day, was excepted from the time of fasting.

Acts of mercy were connected with certain holy days and seasons. Thus Constantine ordered that the emancipation of slaves should take place on Sundays. While he forbade legal proceedings in general on Sunday, he excepted the ceremony of emancipation, and such other acts of grace as were suitable to the character of the day. Easter became the chief season for emancipation. Theodosius in 380 forbade the carrying on of criminal law- proceedings during Lent Nine years later he issued a like prohibition of all bodily punishments during the same season; and in 387 he renewed the laws of the elder and younger Valentinians, by which it was ordered that all prisoners, except those guilty of the very worst offences, should be released at Easter.

PENANCE.

During the course of the century many canons were made on the subject of penance, which was thus carried into great minuteness of detail. In the east the regulation of penance was ordinarily left to the consciences of individuals; especially after Nectarius, in consequence of a scandal which had occurred, abolished the office of penitentiary presbyter at Constantinople in 391. Socrates, who wrote about the year 439, expresses an apprehension of evil results from the abolition, and Sozomen, somewhat later, states that a deterioration of morals had ensued. The office of penitentiary does not appear to have existed in the west and there the performance of formal penance came to be regarded as necessary in order to the Divine forgiveness. The ancient division of penitents into classes is not mentioned after the fifth century.

The honours paid to martyrs were naturally increased, as, from the cessation of persecution, the opportunities of martyrdom became very rare. And the influence of heathenism told most unhappily in this matter. Converts regarded the martyrs as holding a place in their new religion like that of the heroes in the pagan system; they ascribed to them a tutelary power, and paid them honours such as those which belonged to the lesser personages of the pagan mythology. Nor was the Arian controversy without its effect in directing men’s minds unduly towards the saints and martyrs. For, as the great object of orthodox controversialists, in the fourth century, was to vindicate the Saviour’s divinity, and thus his manhood was comparatively little spoken of, he was now in thought removed further from mankind; a want of less exalted intercessors was felt, and a reverence for nearer objects grew up. From the middle of the century it became usual to deliver panegyrical orations on the days assigned to the commemoration of martyrs. The preachers, feeling themselves bound to make the most of their subjects on such occasions, ran out into glorifications of the martyrs, which, if at first intended only as rhetorical ornaments, were soon converted into matter of doctrine. In addition to the earlier belief that the martyrs interceded for their brethren, it was now supposed that they were cognisant of wishes addressed to them. The popular heathen opinion, that the spirits of the dead continued to hover about the resting-places of their bodies, was combined with the idea that the souls of the martyrs were already in the presence of God. Hence arose a practice of invoking them at their graves, and requesting their intercession for all manner of temporal as well as spiritual benefits; and by degrees such addresses came to be put up irrespectively of place. Poetry too contributed to advance the movement; the invocations which heathens had addressed to their gods and muses were transferred by Christian poets to the saints. Other holy persons— as the worthies of Scripture and distinguished monks—were soon associated with the martyrs in the general veneration. Yet the prayers which had in earlier times been offered up for saints and martyrs, in common with the rest of the faithful departed, were retained, notwithstanding their growing inconsistency with the prevalent belief, until in the beginning of the fifth century they were abandoned as derogatory to the objects of them. Saints were, like the heathen gods, chosen as special patrons, not only by individuals, but by cities. It was not without plausible grounds that heathens, as Julian and Eunapius, began to retort on Christians the charge of worshipping dead men, and that the Manicheans, as we have seen, joined in the reproach. St. Augustine strenuously repelled it; he exhorted to an imitation of saints in their holiness, and endeavoured, as did also St. Chrysostom, to oppose the tendency towards an undue exaltation of them. But before his time practices nearly akin to worship of the saints had too surely made their way into the popular belief and feeling, as indeed Augustine is himself obliged to confess.

The bodies of martyrs began to be treated with special honour. Altars and chapels were built over their graves; their relics were transferred from the original places of burial, were broken up into fragments, of which each was supposed to possess a supernatural virtue, and were deposited under the altars of churches. There is no mention of such translations in the account of the churches built by Constantine; but in the reign of Constantius some bodies, supposed to be those of apostles, were found, and were solemnly removed to Constantinople. We are told that remains of other Scripture saints, as far back as the prophet Samuel, and even the patriarch Joseph, were afterwards discovered; and, in order to prevent the risk of mistake as to bodies which had been lying in the earth for hundreds or thousands of years, the saints themselves were said to have appeared in visions, and to have revealed the places of their interment. There was a readiness to believe that every grave of an unknown person- was that of a martyr. St. Martin, it is said, by praying over a grave which had been thus honoured, called up a shade of ferocious appearance, and forced the supposed martyr to avow that he had been a robber, and had been executed for his crimes.

It has been already related that St. Antony disapproved of the Egyptian manner of showing reverence for saints by keeping their bodies above ground, and took measures for escaping such honours. St. Hilarion, the founder of monasticism in Palestine, having died in Cyprus, one of his disciples, Hesychius (who was himself afterwards canonized) stole his body from the grave, and carried it off to the Holy Land. A rivalry ensued between the places of the two interments,—the Cypriots maintaining that, if the saint's body were in Palestine, his spirit remained with themselves; and miracles were said to be performed at both. In another case, the possession of the remains of some monks who had been slain by the Saracens was disputed with bloodshed by the inhabitants of two neighbouring towns.

Relics were supposed to work miracles; they were worn as amulets, and the churches in which they were preserved were hung (although perhaps not before the next century) with models of limbs which had been restored to strength through their virtue. Pretended relics were imposed on the credulous, and various abuses arose. For the purpose of restraining these, Theodosius enacted, m 386, that no one should buy or sell the bodies of martyrs, or should translate them from one place to another.

The blessed Virgin Mary was not as yet honoured above other saints. The Collyridians, a party of female devotees who passed from Thrace into Arabia in the last years of the century, are noted as heretics for offering cakes to her with rites which were perhaps derived from the heathen worship of Ceres. But with the growing admiration of the virgin life, of which St. Mary was regarded as the type, there was a progress of feeling towards opinions which became more decided during the controversies of the following century. On the other hand, the perpetual virginity of the Saviour’s mother was denied by the anomoean Eunomius, by some of the Apollinarians, by Helvidius, a Roman lawyer (A.D. 383), and Bonosus, bishop of Sardica (A.D. 392); and a sect of Antidico-marianites (adversaries of Mary), called forth by the extravagances of the Collyridians, is mentioned as having existed in Arabia.

Anything like worship of angels was as yet supposed to be expressly forbidden by Scripture. St. Ambrose is the only father of this age who recommends invocation of guardian angels.

From the time of the empress Helena’s visit to the Holy Land, a great impulse was given to the practice of pilgrimage. It was supposed, not only that the view of scenes hallowed by their association with the events of Scripture would enkindle or heighten devotion, but that prayers would be especially acceptable if offered up in particular spots; and, as had been the case under the heathen system, some places were believed to be distinguished by frequent miracles. From all quarters—even from the distant Britain—pilgrims flocked to the sacred sites of Palestine, and on their return they carried home with them water from the Jordan, earth from the Redeemer’s sepulchre, or chips of the true cross, which was speedily found to possess the power of reproducing itself. Many, it is said, were even led by their uncritical devotion to visit Arabia for the purpose of beholding the dunghill on which the patriarch Job endured his trials. Pilgrimage became a fashion, and soon exhibited the evil . characteristics of a fashion, so that already warnings were uttered against the errors and abuses which were connected with it. The monk St. Hilarion, during his residence of fifty years in Palestine, visited the holy sites but once, and for a single day—in order, as he said, that he might neither appear to despise them on account of their nearness, nor to suppose that God’s grace was limited to any particular place. St. Gregory of Nyssa wrote a treatise for the express purpose of dissuading from pilgrimage. Among our Lord’s beatitudes, he says, there is none for those who shall visit Jerusalem. For women the pilgrimage must be at the least, distracting, since they cannot perform it without male companions; and there is continual danger from the promiscuous society of the hostelries on the way. The Saviour is no longer bodily in the holy places; He and the Holy Spirit are not confined to Jerusalem. Change of place will not bring God nearer to us : wherever we are, He will come to us, if our hearts be a fit abode for Him to dwell in and walk in : but if the inner man be full of evil thoughts, although we were at Golgotha, on the Mount of Olives, or at the memorial of the Resurrection, we are as far from receiving Christ within us as they who have not even begun to feel Him. For himself, Gregory says that he had made the pilgrimage, not out of curiosity, but on his way to a council in Arabia, and had escaped the usual dangers by travelling in an imperial carriage, and in the company of religious brethren: yet the sight of the localities had added nothing to his belief of the nativity, the resurrection, of the ascension; while the desperate wickedness of the inhabitants had proved to him that there could be no special grace in the places, and had taught him to value more highly than before the religion of his own Cappadocia. Monks (he says) ought to endeavour to go on pilgrimage from the body to the Lord, rather than from Cappadocia to Palestine. Even Jerome—although he had fixed his abode in the Holy Land, and although in some of his writings he expatiates on the influence of its hallowed associations—yet elsewhere very earnestly warns against the delusions by which the multitude of pilgrims was led thither. “It is not matter of praise”, he tells Paulinus, “to have been at Jerusalem, but to have lived religiously at Jerusalem”. The scenes of the crucifixion and of the resurrection are profitable to such as bear their own cross and daily rise again with Christ—to those who show themselves worthy of so eminent a dwelling-place. But as for those who say ‘The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord’—let them hear the apostle’s words—‘Ye are the temple of the Lord, and the Holy Spirit dwelleth in you’. The court of heaven is open to access from Jerusalem and from Britain alike; for the kingdom of God is within you”

Opposition to the Tendencies of the Age.

The novel ideas and practices which were introduced into the church excited the mockery of the older sects —such as the Novatianists and the Manichaeans—who loudly charged the Catholics with paganism. The teachers of the age could not fail to discern and to reprobate some of the growing corruptions, and attempted to counteract them. But they bore with, and even encouraged, much that eventually proved mischievous—partly from a desire to facilitate the progress of the gospel and to deal tenderly with converts partly from a regard to the pious intention which lay under strange and injudicious manifestations, or from a want of that historical experience which would have enabled them to detect the lurking germs of evil. On the other hand, there were persons who decidedly set themselves against the tendencies of the time; but unhappily with such a mixture of error in their own opinions, and sometimes with such indiscretion in their conduct, as excited a general odium, and served to strengthen the cause which they opposed. Two of these, Helvidius and Bonosus, have lately been mentioned; the former was encountered by St. Jerome, the latter by St. Ambrose.

Aerius, a presbyter of Sebaste, in the Lesser Armenia, was of earlier date—about A.D. 360. He is described by Epiphanius as an Arian; but his notoriety arose from his attacks on the discipline and observances of the church. In consequence, it is said, of having been disappointed in his aspirations to the bishopric of Sebaste, he began to assert that bishops and presbyters were equal—an opinion which in those days was altogether new, since almost all the sects had at their outset been careful to obtain episcopal ordination for their ministers, and even those which had departed from the usual form of polity had acknowledged the necessity of a graduated hierarchy. Yet although Aerius denied the Divine institution of episcopacy, he appears to have admitted its lawfulness. He denied the utility of stated fasts, and of prayers and alms for the departed; his followers, in determined opposition to the church, chose Sunday for their occasional fasts, while they ate freely on the fourth and sixth days of the week, and spent the penitential part of the paschal season in feasting. It would seem, indeed, that Aerius altogether objected to the celebration of Easter; although some writers have supposed that his objections were directed only against the practice of eating the paschal lamb, which had been retained until his time in some churches, and which he regarded as a remnant of Judaism.

Among the western opponents of the prevailing system was Jovinian, a monk of Rome, who began to publish his opinions about A.D. 388. Although he did not forsake his monastic profession, one of his chief tenets was a denial of the superiority usually ascribed to celibacy. He denied the perpetual virginity of the Redeemer's mother, and maintained that, if single and married persons were equal in other respects, their conditions were also equal. He combated the exaggerated reverence which was attached to the act of martyrdom. He denied the merit of fasting, and the distinctions of food. He maintained, with a strange perversion of Scripture texts, that there was no other distinction between men than the grand division into righteous and wicked; that there was no difference of grades in either class, and that there would hereafter be no difference of degrees in rewards or in punishments. Whosoever had been truly baptized had, according to Jovinian, nothing further to gain by progress in the Christian life; he had only to preserve that which was already secured to him. But the baptism which Jovinian regarded as true was different from the sacrament of the church; indeed, he altogether set aside the idea of the visible church. The true baptism, he said, was a baptism of the Spirit, conferring indefectible grace, so that they who had it could not be overcome by the devil. If any one, after receiving the baptismal sacrament, fell into sin, it was a proof that he had never received inward baptism; but such a person might, on repentance, yet be made partaker of the true spiritual baptism. All sins were regarded by Jovinian as equal; nor did he admit any difference as to guilt between those which were committed before baptism and those which followed after it.

With such doctrines there was naturally connected an insufficient idea as to the importance of individual sins. Jovinian’s opinions were favoured by the popular feeling at Rome, where he made numerous converts, and induced many persons of both sexes, who had before embraced the celibate life, to marry; but among the clergy he found no adherents. After having been condemned and excommunicated in 390, by a synod under Siricius, he repaired to Milan, m the hope of finding favour with Theodosius; but Ambrose had been warned against him by Siricius, and the Roman sentence was repeated at Milan. Jerome wrote against him with violent personality, and in so doing exaggerated the merits of celibacy to such a degree as to give Jovinian’s cause an advantage, while his own friends were dismayed at his indiscretion. Pammachius (who had married a daughter of Paula, and on her death had renounced eminent wealth and station to become a monk) endeavoured, although in vain, to suppress the treatise; and, in order to take off the effects of its extravagance, Augustine wrote in a more moderate strain a book Of the Good of Marriage. Nothing further is known of Jovinian. Jerome speaks of him as dead in 404; yet it has been conjectured that he was the same who, under the name of Jovian, was charged eight years later with disturbing the Roman church by holding religious meetings, and was sentenced by an edict of Honorius to be severely beaten and afterwards banished.

Another of adversaries may be fitly noticed in this place, although he did not appear until somewhat later than the time embraced in the preceding chapters.

Vigilantius was the son of an innkeeper at Calagurris (Hourra, or Caskres), on the French side of the Pyrenees. After having been employed in early youth in his father's trade, he was taken into the household of Sulpicius Severus, the biographer of St. Martin, where he enjoyed the opportunity of applying himself to letters; and he was advanced to the order of presbyter. Through Sulpicius he became acquainted with Paulinus, a noble Aquitanian of Roman family, who, after having filled high secular offices—even, it is said, the consulship— forsook the world, was forcibly ordained a presbyter at Barcelona, and settled at Nola in Campania, in order that he might be near the tomb of St. Felix, a confessor of the time of Decius. Paulinus may be regarded as an example of the manner in which the spirit of the age acted on a religious and enthusiastic mind. In the fervour of penitence for a life of which he probably exaggerated the sinfulness, he persuaded his wife Terasia to renounce the married estate, sold all her property as well as his own, and lived monastically with a few companions in the practice of works of piety and charity. His reverence for saints was carried to an extent beyond that which had as yet become usual. He devoted himself especially to St. Felix: he built a church over the tomb, and adorned it with paintings, among which were scenes from the Old Testament and a symbolical representation of the Trinity. Every year, on the festival of the confessor, Paulinus produced a poem in celebration of his life or miracles; every year he repaired to Rome for the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul. The example and influence of a person so distinguished by rank and so devout in life, who was the correspondent of Jerome, Augustine, Rufinus, and others of the most eminent among his contemporaries, could not fail to advance greatly the superstitions to which he was addicted.

Vigilantius, after having visited Paulinus at Nola, set out for the east, being furnished by him with a letter of introduction to Jerome, which procured for him an honourable reception from the recluse of Bethlehem. But disagreements soon arose. Vigilantius accused Jerome of Origenism, and although he retracted the charge before leaving Bethlehem, he again asserted it in his own country.

Some time after his return to the west, Vigilantius began to vent peculiar opinions. He assailed the prevailing excess of reverence for departed saints; he maintained that their souls, which existed “in Abraham’s bosom, or in the place of rest, or under God's altar”, could not be present at their tombs; he denied the possibility of their intercession after death, and the miracles which were reported to be wrought at their graves. Miracles (he said) were beneficial to unbelievers only; by which he seems to have implied that, as the power of working them had been given for the conviction of the Jews and heathens, the time in which they might be expected was past. He attacked the veneration of relics as idolatrous, and the lighting of candles at the tombs of saints in the daytime as a pagan superstition. He wished that all vigils except that of Easter should be abolished, and spoke of them as giving occasion to debauchery. He denied the usefulness of fasting, continence, and monasticism, and regarded the profession of chastity as a source of corruption. He maintained that it was better to retain property, and to bestow of it by degrees for pious and charitable purposes, than at once to relinquish the whole; and that it was better to seek for objects of charity at home than to send money to Jerusalem.

Jerome, whose old animosity against Vigilantius was revived by the publication of these doctrines, attacked him with the most furious abuse. He reproached him with having been a tapster, and told him that he now applied to Holy Scripture the same tricks of falsification which he had formerly practised on the wine which he dispensed and on the money which he gave in change; that he opposed fasting, continence and sobriety, because they interfered with the profits of his early trade. The argumentative part of the pamphlet cannot be described as very happy. Jerome partly denies the existence of the superstitions which Vigilantius had censured—or, at least, he denies that they existed as anything more than popular usages, unsanctioned by the church; and, by way of overwhelming his opponent, he asks how he can presume to question practices which had been approved by emperors and bishops.

In justice to Vigilantius, it ought to be remembered that our only knowledge of his opinions comes from a very violent and unscrupulous adversary. They would seem to have been produced by a reaction from the system in which he had been for a time engaged—the system exemplified in his patron Sulpicius, in Paulinus, and more coarsely in Jerome. It is a circumstance greatly in his favour that, to the vexation of his opponents, his own bishop showed him countenance, and that he found other supporters in the episcopal order; and although we may hesitate to acquit him of error, there can be little doubt that it is an abuse of language to brand him with the title of heretic.

Nothing is known of the later history of Vigilantius. His doctrines —urged probably with a blameable vehemence and confidence— were so much opposed to the current of the time, that they did not require a council to condemn them; and they were soon obliterated by the Vandal invasion, to which it has been conjectured that their author himself may have fallen a victim.

At the end of a period so full of controversy as the fourth century, I may advert to an objection which has often been brought against preceding writers, and to which I cannot but feel that my own work is liable, in common with theirs. It is said that Church-history, as it is usually written, is only a record of quarrels; and wishes are expressed for a history which should more fully display the fruits of the gospel for good. On some such principle Milner wrote; but if the required book were possible, it cannot be said that Milner has superseded the need of further labours in the same line. I believe, however, that the plausible objection in question is founded on a misconception. Church-history must follow the analogy of secular history. As the one deals in detail with wrongs and calamities, with wars, with intrigues, with factions, but must pass over with mere general words the blessings of prosperity, and must leave utterly unnoticed the happiness which is enjoyed not only under good governments, but even notwithstanding the very worst; so the other must dwell on the sad story of errors and contentions, and must allow the better side to remain untold. It is not the “peace on earth”, but the “sword” that must be its theme. History takes cognizance of men only as they affect other men; of things only as they differ from the everyday course. In Church history, even saints appear too commonly in their least favourable aspect. The occasions which bring them forward are often such as to draw forth their defects rather than their excellencies. Their better part, in so far as it can be written, belongs mainly not to history, but to biography; nay, even of noted and illustrious saints, the highest graces are not matter even for biography; they cannot be written on earth. And the great and immeasurable blessings of the gospel do not consist in the production here and there of a conspicuous hero of the faith, but in its effect on the vast unrecorded multitudes whom it has guided in life, whom it has comforted in trouble, whose death it has filled with the hope of immortality. Unrecorded as these things have been, we yet cannot doubt of their reality, but are assured that the same benefits which we witness in our own day and in our own sphere must in all times have flowed from the same enduring source. Instead, therefore, of requiring from a historian of the church that which is foreign to the nature of his task, we must read with the remembrance that the better portion of Christian history is to be supplied by our own thoughts —thoughts grounded on a belief in the Divine assurances, and confirmed by such opportunities as we may have enjoyed of witnessing their fulfilment.